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'Xanthippe' (Greek: Ξανθίππη) was the wife of Socrates. There are far more stories about her than there are facts. She is believed to have been much younger than the philosopher, perhaps by as much as forty years. She was famed for her sharp tongue and is said to have been the only person to ever have beaten Socrates in a discussion. After one particular quarrel, she was supposed to have emptied a chamber pot on Socrates's head, causing him to remark, "After thunder there generally falls rain."
Xanthippe means "yellow horse", from the Greek "xanthos" (yellow) and "hippos" (horse). Her name now means any nagging scolding person, especially a shrewish wife. According to some sources, Socrates later remarried. Socrates' saying "Marry or marry not, in any case you'll regret it" was supposedly in contemplation of his wife.

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Literary references

Literary references

In Shakespeare's ''Taming of the Shrew'', Petruchio compares Katherina ''"As Socrates' Xanthippe or a worse"'' in Act 1 Scene 2. (Read here)
The novelist Henry Fielding describes the shrewish Mrs. Partridge thus:
:''The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling'', Book II, Chapters iii & iv.
The English Victorian poet Amy Levy wrote a dramatic monologue called "Xantippe"[1].
"Puttermesser and Xanthippe" is the title of one of the chapters of American Jewish novelist Cynthia Ozick's 1997 novel ''The Puttermesser Papers'', a National Book Award finalist.
In Michelle Cliff's poem "The Garden," the speaker wears a t-shirt that reads "Xantippe."