Book X, 55

If you boast that you don’t in any way obey your wife’s orders, you are talking nonsense: for you are not made of tree or stone, as the saying is,' and you suffer what most or all of us suffer, you are ruled by a woman. But if you say, “She does not smack me with her slipper, nor have I an unchaste wife whom I must put up with and shut my eyes,’ I say your servitude is milder than that of others, as you have sold yourself to a chaste and not very severe mistress.