Saint Augustine's mother, Monica (331-387), demonstrates an antiquated, patriarchal, pre-democratic, pre-civil rights, and pre-feminist way of dealing with a philandering and violent husband.

Painting of Augustine of Hippo and his mother Monica of Hippo (1846) by Ary Scheffer (1795–1858)

Augustine's mother served her husband and did not resist him when he was angry even though he was unfaithful to her

Marriage of Saint Monica by Antonio Vivarini, 1441

In this way my mother was brought up in modesty and temperance. It was you (the Lord) who taught her to obey her parents rather than they who taught her to obey you, and when she was old enough, they gave her in marriage to a man whom she served as her lord. She never ceased to try to gain him for you as a convert, for the virtues with which you had adorned her, and for which he respected, loved, and admired her, were like so many voices constantly speaking to him of you. He was unfaithful to her, but her patience was so great that his infidelity never became a cause of quarrelling between them. For she looked to you to show him mercy, hoping that chastity would come with faith. Though he was remarkably kind, he had a hot temper, but my mother knew better than to say or do anything to resist him when he was angry. If his anger was unreasonable, she used to wait until he was calm and composed and then took the opportunity of explaining what she had done. Many women, whose faces were disfigured by blows from husbands far sweeter-tempered than her own, used to gossip together and complain of the behaviour of their men-folk. My mother would meet this complaint with another - about the women's tongues. Her manner was light but her meaning serious when she told them that ever since they had heard the marriage deed read over to them, they ought to have regarded it as a contract which bound them to serve their husbands, and from that time onward they should remember their condition and not defy their masters. These women knew well enough how hot-tempered a husband my mother had to cope with. They used to remark how surprising it was that they had never heard, or seen any marks to show, that Patricius had beaten his wife or that there had been any domestic disagreement between them, even for one day. When they asked her, as friends, to tell them the reason, she used to explain the rule which I have mentioned. Those who accepted it found it a good one: the others continued to suffer humiliation and cruelty.

Augustine's mother won over her mother-in-law with patience and gentleness

The Angel Appears to Saint Monica (1714) by Pietro Maggi.

Her mother-in-law was at first prejudiced against her by the tale-bearing of malicious servants, but she won the older woman over by her dutiful attentions and her constant patience and gentleness. In the end her mother-in-law complained of her own accord to her son and asked him to punish the servants for their meddlesome talk, which was spoiling the peaceful domestic relations between herself and her daughter-in-law. Patricius, who was anxious to satisfy his mother as well as to preserve the good order of his home and the peace of his family, took the names of the offenders from his mother and had them whipped as she desired. She then warned them that anyone who told tales about her daughter-in-law, in the hope of pleasing her, could expect to receive the same reward. After this none of them dared to tell tales and the two women lived together in wonderful harmony and mutual goodwill.

Augustine's mother was a peacemaker and would not gossip

Saint Monica (1464-1465) by Benozzo Gozzoli.

There was another great gift which you had given to your good servant in whose womb you created me, O God, my Mercy. Whenever she could, she used to act the part of the peacemaker between souls in conflict over some quarrel. When misunderstanding is rife and hatred raw and undigested, it often gives vent, in the presence of a friend, to spite against an absent enemy. But if one woman launched a bitter tirade against another in my mother's hearing, she never repeated to either what the other had said, except for such things as were likely to reconcile them. I should not regard this as especially virtuous, were it not for the fact that I know from bitter experience that a great many people, infected by this sin as though it were some horrible, widespread contagion, not only report to one disputant what the other has said, but even add words that were never spoken. And yet a man who loves his own kind ought not to be satisfied merely to refrain from exciting or increasing enmity between other men by the evil that he speaks: he should do his best to put an end to their quarrels by kind words. This was my mother's way, learned in the school of her heart, where you were her secret teacher.

Augustine's mother had the Lord's presence in her heart won her husband and her children for the Lord before her death

Saint Monica's tomb, Basilica di Sant'Agostino, Rome.

In the end she won her husband for you (the Lord) as a convert in the very last days of his life on earth. After his conversion she no longer had to grieve over those faults which had tried her patience before he was a Christian. She was also the servant of your servants. Those of them who knew her praised you, honoured you, and loved you in her, for they could feel your presence in her heart and her holy conversation gave rich proof of it. She had been faithful to one husband, had made due returns to those who gave her birth. Her own flesh and blood had had first claim on her piety, and she had a name for acts of charity. She had brought up her children and had been in travail afresh each time she saw them go astray from you. Finally, O Lord, since by your gift you allow us to speak as your servants, she took good care of all of us when we had received the grace of your baptism and were living as companions before she fell asleep in you. She took good care of us, as though she had been the mother of us all, and served each one as though she had been his daughter.

Source: Saint Augustine. Confessions. Translated by R.S. Pine-Coffin. London: Penguin Group, 1961, Book IX, 9, pages 195-195.