Esther 1:18 [Likewise] shall the ladies of Persia and Media say this day unto all the king's princes, which have heard of the deed of the queen. Thus [shall there arise] too much contempt and wrath.
Ver. 18. Likewise shall the ladies of Persia and Media say] Say what? We will not do as our lords command us. Like enough all this; for their tongues were their own, and their wills no less. That free will (about which there is so much ado made) when men once lost, the women caught it up; and hence they are so wedded to their own will, saith one merrily. Quicquid volunt, valde volunt, what they will do they will do contra gentes, saith another. And for talking and telling their minds, the rabbis have a proverb, that ten kabs (measures) of speech descended into the world, and the women took away nine of them. These ladies of Persia and Media were feasting with the queen when the king sent for her, ubi quid factum est? garritur, potitatur, saltitatur, saith an interpreter, at which time they were chatting, and bibbing, and dancing, and (when their mirth was marred) they would not spare to speak their minds and ease their stomachs, whatever came of it. We read in our own chronicles of the Lady de Breuse, that by her railing and intemperate tongue she had so exasperated King John (whom she reviled as a tyrant and a murderer), that he would not be pacified by her strange present (four hundred cows, and one bull, all milk-white, except only the ears, which were red) sent unto the queen (Speed. 572).
Then shall there arise too much contempt and wrath] Contempt on the wives' part, and wrath on the husbands'; wives shall slight their husbands, and they again shall fall foul upon their wives; so that coniugium marriage, shall become coniurgium; a dispute, and the house they dwell together in shall be no better than a fencing school, wherein the two sexes seem to have met together for nothing but to play their prizes, and to try masteries. This made Sulla say, I had been happy if I had never been married.