Juvenal Satire

Satire, in order to resonate with the audience, has to reflect something about reality, but, in Juvenal's case, it is surely a heightened, exaggerated version of it, even a caricature. As evidenced, this is by far the longest, and in some ways the most offensive, of the Satires by Juvenal, his sixth, which he devotes to a wide-ranging attack on the folly, for men, of marriage.
Postumus, are you really
Taking a wife? You used to be sane enough—what
Fury's got into you, what snake has stung you up?
Why endure such bitch-tyranny when rope's available
By the fathom, when all those dizzying top-floor windows
Are open for you, when there are bridges handy
To jump from?
Juvenal did not have a narrow view of women. He does not, in this satire, portray all wives as vicious oppressors. Instead, the female stereotype is firmly defined as nasty, lying, vicious, pretentious, emasculating, garrulous, aggressive, vulgar, nymphomaniacal,
In his view, female sexuality begets masks, forgeries, and imperfect messages between external signs and internal meanings. From overbearing lust by women, to what means could any man be able to decide on a wife who could be virtuous to her husband? At what time could any husband leave his home in complete trust of his wife to remain faithful? As well as distrust of the husband, the wife, upon learning this, would begin to get angry, to boil her husband's distrust into rage of the false misgivings (or perhaps true misgivings) of herself. Anger, on the other hand -- because it "whirls [women] headlong," disables control, and prompts revelation of that which is within -- earns Juvenal's respect. To make a woman angry is to pull the truth out of her. Or perhaps it's to pull insults and hurtful things from them to put an end to discretions made against them, to satisfy the accusations of the people with