curtain lecture

English

Noun

curtain lecture (plural curtain lectures)

1. A scolding given by a wife to her husband in bed.
   • 1649, Francis Quarles, Virgin Widow, Act II, sc. 1:

     I have pawn'd already her Tuftaffaty Peticote and all her Child-bed linnen, besides two tiffiny Aprons, and her bearing-cloth, for which I have had already two curtaine Lectures, and a black and blue eye.

   • 1714, Alexander Pope, "The Wife of Bath":

     I still prevailed, and would be in the right, / Or curtain lectures made a restless night.

   • 1819, Washington Irving, "Rip Van Winkle":

     A curtain lecture is worth all the sermons in the world for teaching the virtues of patience and long-suffering.

   • 1829, William Combe, The Tour of Doctor Syntax, in Search of a Wife, Canto 1:

     Yes, she may toss her head and hector, / But she shall have a curtain lecture ...

   • 1846, Douglas William Jerrold, Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures:
   • 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Chapter 4:

     ... in a curtain lecture, I say, Mrs. Sedley took her husband to task for his cruel conduct to poor Joe.