In Search of Lost Time [volumes 1 to 7]

by Marcel Proust

One of the reasons which enhance still farther the masculine air of women like Mme. de Vaugoubert is that the neglect which they receive from their husbands, the shame that they feel at such neglect, destroy in them by degrees everything that is womanly. They end by acquiring both the good and the bad qualities which their husbands lack. The more frivolous, effeminate, indiscreet their husbands are, the more they grow into the effigy, devoid of charm, of the virtues which their husbands ought to practise.

Very interesting discussion of how the wife and the husband exchange characteristics particularly in light of the gender predilections of one of the other.