Клуб под каблуком
А вот так выглядит мужчина на дне социальной иерархии:
I don’t think there’s any harm in him. You aren’t going to arrest him, are you, Lije?
В английском подкаблучники настолько бесправны, что для них даже слова отдельного нет — есть только их курицы-жёны, которые клюют их в темечко.
А в Англии существовал клуб подкаблучников, и попасть туда было не просто:
It is said that in Yorkshire, England, there is an organization known as the Henpecked club. Each candidate for membership is required to prove that he has been in the habit of taking his wife’s breakfast to her in bed, blacking the stove, carrying up the coal and nursing the baby every night while his wife goes out.
Первое правило клуба. Для скромных:
Curs’d be the man, the poorest wretch in life,
The crouching vassal to a tyrant wife!
Who has no will but by her high permission,
Who has not sixpence but in her possession;
Who must to he, his dear friend’s secrets tell,
Who dreads a curtain lecture worse than hell.
Второе правило клуба. Для смелых:
Were such the wife had fallen to my part,
I’d break her spirit or I’d break her heart;
I’d charm her with the magic of a switch,
I’d kiss her maids, and kick the perverse bitch.
Третье правило клуба. Для отчаянных:
As father Adam first was fool’d,
(A case that’s still too common.)
Here lies man a woman ruled,
The devil ruled the woman.