Xanthippe

Socrates's wife — famous in antiquity as a shrew and nag — who appears in Plato's Phaedo at Socrates's execution and in Xenophon's Memorabilia — and whose reputation for bad temper Socrates himself supposedly cultivated as a philosophical exercise in patience.

Represents the domestic reality behind the philosophical ideal — Socrates spent his days philosophizing in public while his wife raised their three sons largely without support, and her reputation for anger may simply be the reaction of a woman whose husband contributed no income and was frequently absent for philosophical discussions.