‘A reproof given by a wife to her husband in bed’ (Johnson).
1633. T. Adams, Exp. 2 Peter ii. 5. Often have you heard how much a superstitious wife, by her curtain lectures, hath wrought upon her Christian husband.
1660. Hickeringill, Jamaica (1661), 85. I am not awed … with the dreadfull Catechisme of a Curtain Lecture.
1710. Addison, Tatler, No. 243, ¶ 4. He was then lying under the Discipline of a Curtain-Lecture.
1846. D. Jerrold (title), Mrs. Caudle’s Curtain Lectures.
1852. Thackeray, Eng. Hum., iii. (1876), 233. As confidential as a curtain-lecture.
Hence Curtain-lecture v.
1859. G. Meredith, R. Feverel, iii. No curtain-lecturing with a pipe.
