“Italian husbands, in order to buy their wives a fur coat, spend more than all their European collegues.”

"Women and the Myth of Consumerism," Ramparts (1969)
Context: There is a persistent myth that a wife has control over her husband’s money because she gets to spend it. Actually, she does not have much more financial authority than the employee of a corporation who is delegated to buy office furniture or supplies. The husband, especially if he is rich, may allow his wife wide latitude in spending — he may reason that since she has to work in the home she is entitled to furnish it to her taste, or he may simply not want to bother with domestic details — but he retains the ultimate veto power. If he doesn’t like the way his wife handles his money, she will hear about it.

The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. Verulam Viscount St. Albans (1625), Of Marriage and Single Life

Source: Little Women

As quoted in Marilyn Monroe : In Her Own Words (1983), edited by Roger Taylor
Variant: Husbands are chiefly good as lovers when they are betraying their wives.

Statement to PETA, as quoted in "Miss USA Winners Pose Naked in Sexy New PETA Ad", E! Online (June 13, 2013) https://www.eonline.com/uk/news/429232/miss-usa-winners-pose-naked-in-sexy-new-peta-ad-check-it-out.

Silvia Colloca's secret ingredient for the sweet life http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/celebrity/interviews/silvia-collocas-secret-ingredient-for-the-sweet-life-20150725-gikllg.html (July 26, 2015)

George Orwell "The Art of Donald McGill"

Country Town Sayings (1911), p16.

The Concrete Jungle (p. 305)
The Laundry Files, The Atrocity Archives (2004)