Slattern

3. Cookery is familiar to her, with the price and quality of provisions; and she is a ready accountant. Her chief view, however, is to serve her mother and lighten her cares. She holds cleanliness and neetness to be indispensable in a woman; and that a slattern is disgusting, especially if beautiful.

A dunce he always was, it is true; for learning cannot be acquired by leaving school and entering at college as a fellow-commoner; but he was now (in his own peculiar manner) as great a dandy as he before had been a slattern, and when he entered his sitting-room to join his two guests, arrived scented and arrayed in fine linen, and perfectly splendid in appearance.

[…] How many times I have heard a woman called a slattern, because she could not keep a house in order, when had she been allowed to write out her sublime thoughts, which were all in another direction, she would have astonished the world with her genius.

AMANDA: I’ve been brought up to believe that it’s beyond the pale, for a man to strike a woman. ELYOT: A very poor tradition. Certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs. AMANDA: You’re an unmitigated cad, and a bully. ELYOT: And you’re an ill-mannered, bad tempered slattern. AMANDA (loudly): Slattern indeed. ELYOT: Yes, slattern, slattern, slattern, and fishwife. VICTOR: Keep your mouth shut, you swine.