Thou seist to me it is a greet meschief
To wedde a povre womman, for costage;
And if that she be riche, of heigh parage,
Thanne seistow that it is a tormentrie
To soffre hire pride and hire malencolie.
– Geoffrey Chaucer
The Canterbury Tales, The Wife of Bath’s Prologue. Merciless nagging is one of the main ways the Wife of Bath dominated her first three old husbands. In this passage she badgers them for saying it is a misfortune to marry a poor woman because of expense. And lectures them for complaining about rich women of high birth because of their pride and melancholy.