Women Wives Quotes & Sayings

Bill Clinton, talking about the need to financially empower wives and mothers in regressive countries, once remarked that women have 'the responsibility gene.' No one has that gene more markedly than his wife. — Tina Brown

Women in drudgery knew
They must be one of four:
Whores, artists, saints, and wives.
There are composite lives
that women always live — Muriel Rukeyser

Bullies will knock you to your knees then tell you to get up and fight. Stay on your knees because God is there with you and is preparing an army to fight for your right to live. — Shannon L. Alder

Best of wives and best of women. — Alexander Hamilton

For instance, some evangelicals have turned Proverbs 31 into a woman's job description instead of what it actually is: the blessing and affirmation of valor for the lives of women, memorized by Jewish husbands for the purpose of honoring their wives at the family table. It is meant as a celebration for the everyday moments of valor for everyday women, not as an impossible exhausting standard. — Sarah Bessey

It is the popular misconception of marriage as a mere social convention or quaint tradition invented by the brain of man which has led to the denigrating of this holy relation, the multiplication of unspeakable immorality, the common unrest between husbands and wives, and the gradual disintegration of society and civilization. For if marriage exists merely by human authority then men and women may do with it or conduct themselves in it as they please. They may redefine it, or they may abandon it altogether. But if marriage is a divine institution, then it is governed by a higher authority. It becomes, then, a matter of obedience, and the conduct of husbands and wives within marriage is a conduct for which they must give their account to God. The original institution of marriage is therefore basic to our understanding of marriage, our estimation of marriage, and our right behavior in marriage. — Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

I also learned what I and many other wives were doing wrong. We were neglecting ourselves. We were born women yet were taking care of our roles as mom, employee or wife before we took care of ourselves. But in order to adequately fulfill those roles, we have to put ourselves first. — Elona Washington

The Old Testament records the sage words of an old woman in addressing two younger ones: 'The Lord grant', said Naomi, 'that ye may find rest, each of you, in the house of her husband!' Who ever heard of a woman finding rest in the house of her husband?
And yet, and yet ! The restless hearts are not
the hearts of wives and of mothers, as many a lonely woman knows. There is no more crushing load than the load of a loveless life. It is a burden that is often beautifully and graciously borne, but its weight is a very real one. The mother may have a bent form, a furrowed brow, and worn, thin hands ; but her heart found its rest for all that. Naomi was an old woman; she knew the world very well, and her words are worth weighing. Heavy luggage is Christ's strange cure for weary hearts. — F.W. Boreham

And who should have the money, indeed, if not your wives? They have everything to do with the money. What idea have you, but to waste it!"
"Women waste nothing
they couldn't if they tried," said Aaron Sisson. — D.H. Lawrence

I abhor men who cheat on their wives and despise women who sleep with married men. — Lisa Lim

Women's magazines continue to print 'helpful' articles on How to Hang on to Your Husband while thousands of wives write to me and complain that 'hanging is too good for 'em. — Ann Landers

I realized then how odd it must seem to them to be summoned by a woman. Roman women were at home quietly minding their business or else doing what wives were known to do in joke and song: boss, nag, forbid. As a foreign queen I was the only woman who was their equal and had the power to summon them, question them, and advise them on matters other than domestic details. I thought that a pity; there should be others. — Margaret George

Even the kindest men in the church had no idea of the many ways in which they made their wives and daughters into lesser persons than their sons and fellow male church members. 'I wouldn't be where I am today without my wife,' they say in testimony meetings. But what they are also saying is that their wives have given up their personal ambitions in favor of the ambitions of their husbands. Mormon men protect their daughters, but they encourage and cheer on their sons. — Mette Ivie Harrison

I scarcely remember any writer who has ever ventured to say that the half of the work of the world is actually accomplished by women; and very few husbands who would be otherwise than greatly startled and amazed, if not indignant, if not derisive, at the suggestion of such an idea as that the work of their wives was equal to their own. — Margaret Oliphant

Admitting that this job isn't always easy doesn't make somebody a bad mother. At least, it shouldn't. We're all on this ride together. We are not the first ones to ever accidentally tell our children to shut up, or wonder - just for a moment - what it would be like if we'd never had children. We aren't the first mothers to feel overwhelmed and challenged and not entirely fulfilled by motherhood. And we certainly won't be the last. Nothing can be lost by admitting our weaknesses and imperfections to one another. In fact, quite the opposite is true. We will be better mothers, better wives, and better women if we are able to finally drop the act and get real. Who are we pretending for, anyway? — Jill Smokler

With few exceptions, the leading women in philanthropy, notably Melinda Gates, are the wives or daughters of rich and powerful men. — Kavita Ramdas

We have noted thatthe two creation stories contained no pointers toward male "headship" in the sense that men or husbands are supposed to exercise authority or leadership over women or wives. But the audience of Genesis knew that patriarchy was a reality of life. Genesis here tells them how this came to be. Male authority or domination was not God's design but a consequence of a breakdown in relationship between humanity and God, between humanity and the animal world, and between human beings and one another. From now on, the Bible will assume the reality of patriarchy and of male headship, but it begins by noting that this came about only as a result of those various breakdowns of relationship. — John E. Goldingay

Chinese whisper games will start, where one woman will nod at a young dancing girl, asking a question that is passed down the row from one woman to another, before a response comes back up the line in the same manner. These women are in the business of finding wives for their sons and they offer up occasional commentary on the performance before them.
"Not so pretty. Her sister is better."
"That poor one will have a hard time, yes. The dark skin - she is already an old woman. She will have to wait, yes."
Information about the girl's family's honor, purity, and place in society is also exchanged — Jenny Nordberg

Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses. — Francis Bacon

I've had three wives, six children and six grandchildren and I still don't understand women — John Wayne

According to this hermeneutic, if we follow what the NT says about the relationships between men and women and husbands and wives, we will not be doing the will of God, for the redemptive movement in Scripture means we must go beyond Scripture to discover God's perfect will. — Benjamin Reaoch

In the Ummah, there was no tradition of veiling until around 627 C.E., when the so-called "verse of hijab" suddenly descended upon the community. That verse, however, was addressed not to women in general, but exclusively to Muhammad's wives: — Reza Aslan

Neither man nor woman is perfect or complete without the other. Thus, no marriage or family, no ward or stake is likely to reach its full potential until husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, men and women work together in unity of purpose, respecting and relying upon each other's strengths. — Sheri L. Dew

I'd not sign away my liberty to any man,' Alice answered with spirit.'Wives have no more rights than servants.But once we women have the vote,we'll change all that. — Janet MacLeod Trotter

I want to warn potential victims. Many of them are women, and many of them are battered women. It's a cause for me. When I look back, though, so many of the books I've written are about wives who just couldn't get away. — Ann Rule

Here's the deal, though. Real men watch girly shit with their wives, and they don't bitch about it. Because you know what? When you're done watching that girly shit, your woman is happy. And what do happy women do? They take you to bed and bang your brains out. — Jasinda Wilder

Men and women alike possess the qualities which make a guardian; they differ only in their comparative strength or weakness. Obviously. And those women who have such qualities are to be selected as the companions and colleagues of men who have similar qualities and whom they resemble in capacity and in character? Very true. And ought not the same natures to have the same pursuits? They ought. Then, as we were saying before, there is nothing unnatural in assigning music and gymnastic to the wives of the guardians - to that point we come round again. Certainly not. The law which we then enacted was agreeable to nature, and therefore not an impossibility or mere aspiration; and the contrary practice, which prevails at present, is in reality a violation of nature. That appears to be true. We — Plato

Some women take up the law and become lawyers. Other women lay down the law and become wives. — Joan Rivers

I wonder why the mountain men's wives don't seem to mind them drinking so much and dancing with other women?" Emma's propped up her chin with her fist, her elbow resting on her knee, as she watched the goings-on. Davis grinned. "You see the size of those men? I'm sure they do whatever it is they want to do. Most Ute women tend to be easy on their men. Besides, not everyone has an exemplary husband such as myself." She slanted him a look and smirked. — Callie Hutton

It is one of the great ironies of Mormon history that Smith, who set the polygamous movement in motion, never experienced it in practical terms. He was content to marry the teenage women who lived in his home and then let them depart when Emma objected. And he was content to let his polyandrous wives live with their first husbands, so he never bore the responsibility of providing for them, financially or emotionally, on a day-to-day basis. He never witnessed the toll practical polygamy would take on an Eliza Partridge... — Todd M. Compton

David was faithful in the first and the third; but being a man of passion, he failed in the second. And even though his wives and concubines increased, his passion was not abated. This king who took another man's wife already had a harem full of women. The simple fact is that the passion of sex is not satisfied by a full harem of women; it is increased. Having many women does not reduce a man's libido, it excites it ... it stimulates it. David, being a man with a strong sexual appetite, mistakenly thought, To satisfy it, I will have more women. — Charles R. Swindoll

Women can be strong, be smart, be sexy, be mothers, be wives, and be powerful. We don't need to compromise. — Amber Valletta

I was amongst the virtues like the great Turk in his seraglio of women, and I chose to dwell with that virtue which looked the fairest in my eyes and gave me at that season most pleasure. In short, I made wives of them: I first admired them, then made them my own property, and if they would not submit to my will, I again turned them off and divorced them. — Sarah Fielding

Powerful men often succeed through the help of their wives. Powerful women only succeed in spite of their husbands. — Lynda Lee-Potter

Still other rumors held that the ultimate aim of Bolshevik policy, seen in the combination of unveiling and collectivization, was to have all women held in common. In the kolkhoz, peasants ware warned, men and women slept together under giant blanket, and wives became common property. — Douglas Northrop

Trust me, lots of guys bring women up to their rooms when their wives are aren't there and get massages, it happens all the time. It means 'nothing'. — Triple H

Oh, what strange wonderful clocks women are. They nest in Time. They make the flesh that holds fast and binds eternity. They live inside the gift, know power, accept, and need not mention it. Why speak of time when you are Time, and shape the universal moments, as they pass, into warmth and action? How men envy and often hate these warm clocks, these wives, who know they will live forever. — Ray Bradbury

And, oh God, in my misspent youth as a housewife, I, too, used to bake bread, in those hectic and desolating days just prior to the woman's movement, when middle-class women were supposed to be wonderful wives and mothers, gracious hostesses ... I used to feel so womanly when I was baking my filthy bread. — Angela Carter

Ron told Pippa that during the six years he had spent on the book, Valerie Chernow had developed a powerful identification with Hamilton's wife. "She used to say, 'Eliza is like me: She's good, she's true, she's loyal, she's not ambitious.' There was a purity and a goodness about the character, and that was like Valerie," he says. In 2006, after 27 years of marriage, Valerie passed away. For her gravestone, Ron chose a line from the letter that Hamilton wrote to Eliza on the night before the duel: "Best of wives and best of women. — Lin-Manuel Miranda

Well how you spect to make her mind? Wives is like children. You have to let 'em know who got the upper hand. Nothing can do better than a good sound beating. (Walker 2000: 34) — Alice Walker

It is very difficult to know people and I don't think one can ever really know any but one's own countrymen. For men and women are not only themselves; they are also the region in which they are born, the city apartment or the farm in which they learnt to walk, the games they played as children, the old wives' tales they overheard, the food they ate, the schools they attended, the sports they followed, the poets they read, and the God they believed in. It is all these things that have made them what they are, and these are the things that you can't come to know by hearsay, you can only know them if you have lived them. — W. Somerset Maugham

I do not regard the rise of woman as a bad sign. Rather do I fancy that her traditional subordination was itself an artificial and undesirable condition based on Oriental influences. Our virile Teutonic ancestors did not think their wives unworthy to follow them into battle, or scorn to dream of winged Valkyries bearing them to Valhalla. — H.P. Lovecraft

For it goes without saying, women with the fluidity of water do not make dormant wives, nor ice for that matter. — Candace Gleave

... I wanted to show that the mother was the heroine as soon as possible. I'm tired of love-sick girls and runaway wives. We'll prove that there's romance in old women also. — Louisa May Alcott

I really don't see any men sitting in the corner office plotting to keep women out. All the men I know are actively trying to promote women, to get more women involved. These men have wives they care about; they have daughters they desperately care about. So I don't think it's fair to blame men - or I don't think it's accurate to blame men anymore. — Debora Spar

Flashes of my past lives kept crawling across my vision. I had Akima's laugh, Eve's blind ability to love, and Marrah's unwavering belief in family. I was all of these women and none of them. Their souls carried along inside of me but unmistakable from my own.
I saw their lives in pieces, their triumphs and sorrows, loved ones gained and lost. They were all different yet somehow the same. We were sisters and daughters, lovers and wives.
Pacey O'Brien-Lilith — Ashley Jeffery

For men and women are not only themselves; they are also the region in which they are born, the city apartment or farm in which they learnt to walk, the games they played as children, the old wives tales they overheard, the food they ate, the schools they attended, the sports they followed, the poets they read, and the God they believed in. It is all these things that have made them what they are, and these are the things that you can't come to know by hearsay ... — W. Somerset Maugham

Learn what not to expect. Irish catholic they get sh**** little rings. Irish women get crappy rings. Baptist get the worst because they get the rings under water. When it comes up, it's garbage. Jewish, big rings. Episcopalian big rings. Italians-the best, because they get them off of dead people, and second wives get the biggest rings of all. — Joan Rivers

When [men] see a pretty woman, and feel the delicious madness of love coming over them, they always stop to calculate her temper, her money, their own money, or suitableness for the married life ... Ha, ha, ha! Let us fool in this way no more. I have been in love forty-three times with all ranks and conditions of women, and would have married every time if they would have let me. How many wives had King Solomon, the wisest of men? And is not that story a warning to us that Love is master of the wisest? It is only fools who defy him. — William Makepeace Thackeray

I was not prepared to hear over and over from men how the women - the mothers, sisters, girlfriends, wives - in their lives are constantly criticizing them for not being open and vulnerable and intimate, all the while they are standing in front of that cramped wizard closet where their men are huddled inside, adjusting the curtain and making sure no one sees in and no one gets out. There was a moment when I was driving home from an interview with a small group of men and thought, Holy shit. I am the patriarchy. — Brene Brown

I have noticed ... that men usually leave married women alone and are inclined to treat all wives with respect. This is no great credit to married women. — Marilyn Monroe

I have nothing against women. Some of my best wives were women. — Mike Caro

The new mystique is that women can have it all. There's a whole new generation of women today, flogging themselves to compete for success according to the male model - in a work world structured for men with wives to handle the details of life. — Betty Friedan

Once or twice, in the first days of his marriage, he had asked himself with a slight shiver what would happen if Susy should begin to bore him. The thing had happened to him with other women as to whom his first emotions had not differed in intensity from those she inspired. — Edith Wharton

We need feminism because girls are shot in the head for going to school. We need feminism because women are burned alive for refusing to submit to grotesque male desirs. We need feminism because women are aunder represented in every sphere of life except being wives and mothers. (...) We need feminism because women's bodies remain politicised, scrutinsed, fetishised. There are countless more reasons why we need feminism, infinitely more reasons; and this in itself is another reason that we need feminism. — Victoria Pepe

Billionaires prefer Black women. They are loyal and guard your interests. Black wives are for grown ups. — Ben Horowitz

Let the children come,' and they ran from the trees toward her. 'Let your mothers hear you laugh,' she told them. And the woods rang. The adults looked on and could not help smiling. Then, 'let the grown men come,' she shouted. They stepped out one by one from among the ringing trees. 'Let your wives and your children see you dance,' she told them. And ground life shuddered beneath their feet. Finally, she called the women to her. 'Cry,' she told them. 'For the living and the dead, just cry.' And without covering their eyes, the women let loose. It started that way, laughing children, dancing men, crying women. And then it got mixed up. Women stopped crying and danced. Men sat down and cried. Children danced. Women laughed. Children cried until exhausted. — Toni Morrison

When women devote themselves to their husbands, children, and building their house, the whole church is strengthened. This is actually their 'ministry' to the church: being obedient wives who are raising godly children. Obviously, when a church is full of healthy families, the church will be healthy and stable. — Nancy Wilson

Popularity
The capacity for listening sympathetically when men boast of their wives and women complain of their husbands. — H.L. Mencken

Brigham Young had 47 children, and over 50 women as wives. — Keith Henson

It has been rumored that "Psycho" is so terrifying that it will scare some people speechless. Some of my men hopefully sent their wives to a screening. The women emerged badly shaken but still vigorously vocal. — Alfred Hitchcock

They were streetwalkers, women who sold themselves for money to men- good, God-fearing men who went to church with their wives the following Sunday without a care. — Chris Priestley

Since all the maids are good and lovable, from whence come the bad wives? — Charles Lamb

The difficulty of course is that I like women. It is only wives I am in trouble with. — John Steinbeck

Warren Jeffs is both a problem and the symptom of a problem. The FLDS has created a lot of Warrens, men who are intoxicated with their own power, believing they need at least three wives to get into heaven and wanting to dominate women and children. Generation after generation of believers have been conditioned to equate obedience with salvation. People who have never been taught of allowed to think for themselves don't suddenly change. Change it too frightening. — Carolyn Jessop

But a woman's right to leave a marriage can also be a lifesaver for men. The Centers on Disease Control reports that the rate at which husbands were killed by their wives fell by approximately two-thirds between 1981 and 1998, in part because women could more easily leave their partners.32 — Stephanie Coontz

God bids you not to commit lechery, that is, not to have sex with any woman except your wife. You ask of her that she should not have sex with anyone except you
yet you are not willing to observe the same restraint in return. Where you ought to be ahead of your wife in virtue, you collapse under the onset of lechery ... Complaints are always being made about men's lechery, yet wives do not dare to find fault with their husbands for it. Male lechery is so brazen and so habitual that it is now sanctioned [= permitted], to the extent that men tell their wives that lechery and adultery are legitimate for men but not for women. — Augustine Of Hippo

Sura 2:223 says that 'your wife is as your farm to you, so treat her as you would your farm.' The ulema have quoted this as if it meant you could treat women like the dirt under your feet, but these clerics, who stand as unneeded intercessors between us and God, are never farmers, and farmers read the Quran right, and see their wives are their food, their drink, their work, the bed they lie on at night, the very ground under their feet! Yes, of course you treat your wife as the ground under your feet! — Kim Stanley Robinson

To accept the environmentalist argument that the suffering of individual animals is inconsequential compared to the ozone layer, we must be willing to admit that the sufferings of minority groups, raped women, battered wives, abused children, people sitting on death row, and our loved ones are small potatoes beneath the hole in the sky. To worry about any of them is, in effect, to miniaturize the big picture to portraits of battered puppy dogs. — Karen Davis

Studies show that 110% of men who leave their wives for other women report that their wives are crazy. Darwin — Jenny Offill

There's a lot of pressure on women to fulfill certain fantasies. They expect you to be a little bit of a tart, to flirt with all the men. A lot of women do it. But I'm not doing that. I talk with these guys about their wives and kids right away. When they say inappropriate things, I let them, because boys will be boys, but I'm not looking to participate in their conversations. — Jessica Alba

It's interesting because First Wives Club was the first movie that made a shitload of money that starred all women over a certain age. That was a milestone that made you think, "Oh, things are going to change." — Winona Ryder

By 1865, all Southern women - the happily and regrettably single, the perpetually engaged, the wives and widows - had tired of the war. The Confederacy was shrinking, and the morale of its remaining men shrinking with it. — Karen Abbott

From "Not For Ourselves Alone:"
In Elizabeth Cady Stanton's time:
Women were barred by custom from the pulpit and professions
Those who spoke in public were thought indecent
Married women were prohibited from owning or inheriting property: in fact, wives were the property of their husbands, who were entitled by law to her wages and her body.
Women were prohibited from signing contracts
Women had no right to their children or even their clothing in a divorce
Women were not allowed to serve on juries and most were considered incompetent to testify.
Women were not allowed to VOTE. — Ken Burns

I'll hold the baby," Daniel announced, then narrowed his eyes in case anyone wanted to argue the point. "You can do another next year,lass," he added to Gennie when there was no opposition, "and I'll be holding two." He beamed at Diana before he shifted his look to Shelby. "Or three."
"You should have Dad sitting in his throne-chair," Alan amended quickly, giving Gennie one of his rare grins. "That'd make the clearest statement."
"Exactly." Her eyes danced as she kept her features sober. "And Anna, you'll sit beside him. Perhaps you'd hold your embroidery because it looks so natural."
"The wives should sit at their husband's feet," Caine said smoothly. "That's natural."
There was general agreement among the men and definite scorn among the women. — Nora Roberts

As a general rule, it is highly desirable that ladies should keep their temper: a woman when she storms always makes herself ugly, and usually ridiculous also. There is nothing so odious to man as a virago. Though Theseus loved an Amazon, he showed his love but roughly, and from the time of Theseus downward, no man ever wished to have his wife remarkable rather for forward prowess than retiring gentleness. A low voice "is an excellent thing in woman. — Anthony Trollope

How men envy and often hate these warm clocks, these wives, who know they will live forever. So what do we do? We men turn terribly mean, because we can't hold to the world or ourselves or anything. We are blind to continuity, all breaks down, falls, melts, stops, rots, or runs away. So, since we cannot shape Time, where does that leave men? Sleepless. Staring. — Ray Bradbury

She did it, she told herself, not just for the riches her exploits brought her, not just to satisfy that itch lurking at the heart of her. Some of her visitors were good souls driven half-ma with grief for deceased wives. She helped to ease their loss. The rest of her clients were driven by darker compulsions, and the decor in some of the rooms she passed reflected their tastes. In those cases, she helped the women - far lass qualified then she - who would quench those desires, willingly or unwillingly, should she choose not to make this her task. — Stephen Lloyd Jones

Now it has been said from ancient times that all women who weep may be divided into three sorts. There are those who lift up their voices and their tears flow and this may be called crying; there are those who utter loud lamentations but whose tears do not flow and this may be called howling; there are those whose tears flow but who utter no sound and this may be called weeping. Of all those women who followed Wang Lung in his coffin, his wives and his sons' wives and his maid servants and his slaves and his hired mourners, there was only one who wept and it was Pear Blossom. — Pearl S. Buck

How wonderful are the women and men in the world who feed us. Especially those who feed us with no salary. The mothers - I thought. The wives. — Katharine Hepburn

Women, he would say, are not Muses. Muses are Muses. To confuse one with the other is to mistake the Devouring Void for the Seminal Light. Earthly Women and the Muses are ancient, sworn enemies. The battlefield is the Creative Male. On the one side is the encampment of Discordia, of Diana, of Venus located in his Heart and in his Groin. On the other is the Bastion of Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia and Urania, in his Brain and in his Mind. The Muses are tolerant and understanding of border raids, skirmishes, and harassing maneuvers. Throughout the history of the Male Light, there have been few painters, few writers, who have not had a She Who Must Be Accommodated. For some it was their mothers. For many their wives, their mistresses, their girlfriends. For many it was their daughters, a favourite waitress, a stripper, a whore. To the Muses, they are all one. Mother, whore, wife, daughter, stripper, waitress, mistress, girlfriend. — Dave Sim

Until that moment I'd thought I could have it both ways; to be one of them, and also my husband's wife. What conceit! I was his instrument, his animal. Nothing more. How we wives and mothers do perish at the hands of our own righteousness. I was just one more of those women who clamp their mouths shut and wave the flag as their nation rolls off to conquer another in war. Guilty or innocent, they have everything to lose. They are what there is to lose. A wife is the earth itself, changing hands, bearing scars. — Barbara Kingsolver

That's what she was, Joanna felt suddenly. That's what they all were, all the Stepford wives: actresses in commercials, pleased with detergents and floor wax, with cleansers, shampoos, and deodorants. Pretty actresses, big in the bosom but small in the talent, playing housewives unconvincingly, too nicey-nice to be real. — Ira Levin

It's a strange thing, but somehow we expect more of girls than of boys. It is the sisters and wives and mothers, you know, Caddie, who keep the world sweet and beautiful. What a rough world it would be if there were only men and boys in it, doing things in their rough way! A woman's task is to teach them gentleness and courtesy and love and kindness. It's a big task, too, Caddie
harder than cutting trees or building mills or damming rivers. It takes nerve and courage and patience, but good women have those things. They have them just as much as the men who build bridges and carve roads through the wilderness. A woman's work is something fine and noble to grow up to, and it is just as important as a man's. — Carol Ryrie Brink

I have been married twice, but both of my wives have been too bright to be sucked in by women's lib. — Harry Harlow

With wives, men hide behind the air of bravado, which is basically a defence mechanism, I think. Clever creatures, women. Very clever. — Les Dawson

It is a merciful provision my dears, for it takes three or four women to get each man into, through, and out of the world. You are costly creatures, boys, and it is well that mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters love their duty and do it so well, or you would perish off the face of the earth,' said Mrs. Jo solemnly ... — Louisa May Alcott

Despite all the videos you see from the Ministry of Defence or the Pentagon, and all the sanitised language describing smart bombs and pinpoint strikes, the scene on the ground has remained remarkably the same for hundreds of years. Craters. Burned houses. Mutilated bodies. Women weeping for children and husbands. Men for their wives, mothers children. — Marie Colvin

The religious literature handed out by the earnest young missionaries in Temple Square makes no mention of the fact that Joseph Smith
still the religion's focal personage
married at least thirty-three women and probably as many as forty-eight. Nor does it mention that the youngest of these wives was just fourteen years old when Joseph explained to her that God had commanded that she marry him or face eternal damnation. — Jon Krakauer

She knew that it was not smart to address her concerns about money directly, for men despised women who confronted them in this way. She knew that the smart wife, especially one no longer willing to parlay sexual favors, would find a way to bring up matters sweetly, pouring honey all over the problem before showing it to the husband. But she was out of patience. — Karen Essex

Just as men must give up economic control when their wives share the responsibility for the family's financial well-being, women must give up exclusive parental control when their husbands assume more responsibility for child care. — Augustus Y. Napier

He was succeeded on the throne by RAGNAR. At this time Fro (Frey?), the King of Sweden, after slaying Siward, the King of the Norwegians, put the wives of Siward's kinsfolk in bonds in a brothel, and delivered them to public outrage. When Ragnar heard of this, he went to Norway to avenge his grandfather. As he came, many of the matrons, who had either suffered insult to their persons or feared imminent peril to their chastity, hastened eagerly to his camp in male attire, declaring that they would prefer death to outrage. Nor did Ragnar, who was to punish this reproach upon the women, scorn to use against the author of the infamy the help of those whose shame he had come to avenge. Among them was Ladgerda, a skilled amazon, who, though a maiden, had the courage of a man, and fought in front among the bravest with her hair loose over her shoulders. All-marvelled at her matchless deeds, for her locks flying down her back betrayed that she was a woman. — Saxo Grammaticus

It was the large number of outrages on women and the ever-present fear for the safety of their wives and daughters that drove Southern men to cold and trembling fury and caused the Ku Klux Klan to spring up overnight. And it was against this nocturnal organization that the newspapers of the North cried out most loudly, never realizing the tragic necessity that brought it into being. The North wanted every member of the Ku Klux hunted down and hanged, because they had dared take the punishment of crime into their own hands at a time when the ordinary processes of law and order had been overthrown by the invaders. — Margaret Mitchell

During the years I was on the board of directors of the National Organization for Women [chapter] in New York City, the most resistant audiences I ever faced in the process of doing corporate workshops on equality in the workplace were not male executives they were the wives of male executives. As long as her income came from her husband, she was not feeling generous when affirmative action let another woman have a head start vying for her husband's (her) income. — Warren Farrell

I've been playing sexually aware women most of my life. At this point I expected to be playing moms and wives. It's exciting to play a femme fatale. — Kim Cattrall

The fundamental problem is that every technology embeds the ideologies of its creators! Who made the Internet? The military! The Internet is the product of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency! We call it DARPA for short! Who worked for DARPA? DARPA was a bunch of men! Not a single woman worked on the underlying technologies that fuel our digital universe! Men are the shit of the world and all of our political systems and philosophies were created and devised without the input of women! Half of the world's population lives beneath systems of government and technological innovation into which their gender had zero input! Democracy is a bullshit ideology that a bunch of slaveholding Greek men constructed between rounds of beating their wives! All the presumed ideologies of men were taken for inescapable actualities and designed into the Internet! Packet switching is an incredible evil! — Jarett Kobek

No movement calls [migrant workers] oppressed for providing money for women from whom they are receiving neither cooking nor cleaning; for providing their wives with homes while they sleep on the ground. — Warren Farrell

Women are at last becoming persons first and wives second, and that is as it should be. — May Sarton

Within living memory of this country, men could rape their wives: women were not seen as a separate sexual entity, with the right of refusal. — Caitlin Moran

A woman alone always seems a little unusual; it is not true that men respect women: they respect each other through their women - wives, mistresses, "kept" women; when masculine protection no longer extends over her, woman is disarmed before a superior caste that is aggressive, sneering, or hostile. As an "erotic perversion, — Simone De Beauvoir