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

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  Essays, no.8,'Of Marriage and the Single Life'.

It is often seen that bad husbands have very good wives; whether it be that it raiseth the price of their husband's kindness when it comes, or that the wives take a pride in their patience. But this never fails, if the bad husbands were of their own choosing, against their friends' consent; for then they will be sure to make good their own folly.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  Essays, no.8,'Of Marriage and the Single Life'.

Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.

-Bible (NewTestament)
Colossians 3:19.

But refuse profane and old wives'fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness.

-Bible (NewTestament)
  Timothy 4:7^8.

Translations, like wives, are seldom faithful if they are in the least attractive.

-Campbell, (Ignatius) Roy Dunnachie
  The Poetry Review,  Jun/ Jul.

Then Israel's monarch, after Heaven's own heart, His vigorous warmth did, variously, impart To wives and slaves: and, wide as his command, Scattered his Maker's image through the land.

-Dryden,John
Absalom and  Achitophel, pt.1, l.7^10.  An oblique reference to Charles II, who had no legitimate, but many illegitimate, children.

Like strawberry wives, that laid two or three great strawberries at the mouth of their pot, and all the rest were little ones.

-Elizabeth I
Of the Commission of Sales. Quoted in Francis Bacon Apophthegms New and Old (1625), no.54.

Sex suppressed will go berserk, But it keeps us all alive. It's a wonderful change from wives and work And it ends at half past five.

-Ewart, Gavin Buchanan
  'Office Friendships'.

There is no gilding of setting sun or glamor of poetry to light up the ferocious and endless toil of the farmers' wives.

-Garland, (Hannibal) Hamlin
  Boy Life on the Prairie,'Melons and Early Frost'.

   Happiness lies in conquering one's enemies, in driving them in front of oneself, in taking their property, in savouring their despair, in outraging their wives and daughters.

-Genghis Khan originally Temujin
c.1210  Quoted in Witold Rodzinski The Walled Kingdom:  A History of China (1979).

The others were only my wives.But you, mydear, will be my widow.

-Guitry, Sacha
Attributed reply to his fifth wife, when she expressed jealousy of her predecessors.

'Fore heaven, I wonder at the desperate valour Of the bold English, that they dare let loose Their wives to all encounters!

-Jonson, Ben
  Volpone, act1, sc.5.

If we have violated any law, it was not done intentionally. We have injured no man's reputation, character, person, or property.We were meeting together to preserve ourselves, our wives, and our children from utter degradation and starvation.

-Loveless, George
  Statement to the Dorchester Assizes, Mar, on behalf of the Tolpuddle martyrs.

My aim all along has been (in Ezra Pound's term) the most drastic desuetization of Scottish life and letters, and, inparticular, thede-Tibetanizationofthe Highlands and Islands, and getting rid of the whole gang of high mucky-mucks, famous fatheads, old wives of both sexes, stuffed shirts, hollow men with headpieces stuffed with straw, bird-wits, lookers-under-beds, trained seals, creeping Jesuses, Scots Wha Ha'evers, village idiots, policemen, leaders of white-mouse factions and noted connoisseurs of bread and butter, glorified gangsters, and what 'Billy' Phelps calls Medlar Novelists (the medlar being a fruit that becomes rotten before it is ripe),Commercial Calvinists, makers of 'noises like a turnip', and all the touts and toadies and lickspittles o the English Ascendancy, and their infernal women-folk, and all their skunkoil skulduggery.

-Grieve
  Lucky Poet, ch.3,'The Kind of Poetry I  Want'.

Les verrous et les grilles Ne font pas la vertu des femmes ni des filles. Bolts and bars will not keep wives and daughters chaste.

-Molie'  re,Jean Baptiste Poquelin
L'EŁ   cole des maris, act1, sc.2.

For the crown of our life as it closes Is darkness, the fruit thereof dust; No thorns go as deep as a rose's, And love is more cruel than lust. Time turns the old days to derision, Our loves into corpses or wives; And marriage and death and division Make barren our lives.

-Swinburne, Algernon Charles
  Poems and Ballads,'Dolores', stanza 20.

'Sink me the ship, Master Gunnerösink her, split her in twain! Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain!' And the gunner said 'Ay, ay,' but the seamen made reply: 'We have children we have wives, And the Lord hath spared our lives.'

-Tennyson
  'The Revenge', stanzas11^12, l.89^93.

Hullo, Polly, my love, can you hear the dumb goose-hiss of the wives as they huddle and peck or flounce at a Thomas waddle away? Who cuddled you when? Which of their gandering hubbies moaned in Milk Wood for your naughty mothering arms and body like a wardrobe, love?

-Thomas, Dylan Marlais
  Under MilkWood.

   I hope in time 'twill grow into a custom That noblemen shall come with cap and knee To purchase a night's lodging of their wives. 895

-Webster,John
  The Duchess of Malfi, act 3, sc.2.