How to Handle the Weaker Sex - or, Why I need to be Nicer to Deborah

Here is something I read yesterday from William Gouge, in Domestical Duties, writing in 1627 on Ephesians 5 in the section on the role of a husband. I have never heard any one ever express this, yet it is so true and has been so helpful to me since I read it. The net of it: I need to be nicer to my wife when she gets upset with me.

"Because wives through the weakness of their sex (for they are the weaker vessels) are much prone to provoke their husbands. So as if there be not love predominant in the husband, there is like to be but little peace betwixt man and wife, for "Love covereth a multitude of imperfections." Because Christ by his love provokes the church to love him, so a husband by loving his wife should provoke her to love him again; showing himself like the sun which is the fountain of light, and from which the moon receives what light she has: so he should be the fountain of love to his wife."
- William Gouge, Domestical Duties, 1627