My wife is a most knowing woman
She always is finding me out
She never will hear explanations
But instantly puts me to rout
There’s no use to try and deceive her
If out with my friends, night or day
In the most inconceivable manner
She tells where I’ve been right away
She says that I’m “mean” and “inhuman”
Oh! my wife is a most knowing woman

She would have been hung up for witchcraft
If she had lived sooner, I know
There’s no hiding anything from her
She knows what I do–where I go;
And if I come in after midnight
And say “I have been to the lodge,”
Oh, she says while she flies in a fury
“Now don’t think to play such a dodge!
It’s all very fine, but won't do, man”
Oh, my wife is a most knowing woman

Not often I got out to dinner
And come home a little “so so,”
I try to creep up through the hall-way
As still as a mouse, on tip-toe
She’s sure to be waiting up for me
And then comes a nice little scene
“What, you tell me you’re sober, you wretch you
Now don’t think that I am so green!
My life is quite worn out with you, man,”
Oh, my wife is a most knowing woman!
She knows me much better than I do
Her eyes are like those of a lynx
Though how she discovers my secrets
Is a riddle would puzzle a sphynx
On fair days, when we go out walking
If ladies look at me askance
In the most harmless way, I assure you
My wife give me, oh! such a glance
And says “all these insults you’ll rue, man,”
Oh, my wife is a most knowing woman

Yes, I must give all my friends up
If I would live happy and quiet;
One might as well be ‘neath a tombstone
As live in confusion and riot
This life we all know is a short one
While some tongues are long, heaven knows
And a miserable life is a husbands
Who number his wife with his foes
I’ll stay at home now like a true man
For my wife is a most knowing woman