A virtuous woman [is] a crown to her husband: but she that maketh ashamed [is] as rottenness in his bones.
Ver. 4. A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband.] Heb., A valiant woman; an able housewife, such as Bathsheba commends to her son, Pro 31:10-31 and as Paul describes. Tit 2:4-5 She is said to be a crown to her husband - not a ring for his finger, or a chain of gold for his neck, but a crown or garland for his head, a chief and choice ornament, as Sarah was to Abraham, as Livia to Augustus, as Placilla to Theodosius, as Nazianzen's mother to her husband. a
Is as rottenness in his bones.] Not a disgrace only to him, but a disease, and such a disease, as is far worse than a quartan ague: for there be two good days for one bad; but here a continual pain, and hardly curable. The wise man here expresseth the mischief of an evil wife, by a very apt similitude. And that of Jerome is not much behind it, Sicut in ligno vermis, ita perdit virum suum uxor malefica. As the worm eats into the heart of the tree, and destroys it, so doth a haughty wife her husband. All evils, as elements, are most troublesome, when out of their proper place, as impiety in professors, injustice in judges, dishonour and discomfort in a wife, &c.
a ου συνεργος μονον αλλα και αρχηγος εγενετο. Naz.