That is still the contextual meaning when the expression is used today. When people who actually know what they mean (and who know it was Congreve and not Shakespeare) quote the expression “hell hath no fury & c”, they mean a spurned woman and not a woman who has been treated with contempt generally.

It always refers to a woman spurned by a man, nothing else.

I strongly suspect that Saviour Balzan has some mummy issues. Which can explain why he has this deep seated anger that makes him lash out, viciously, at any woman that sees him for what he is and has the audacity to stand up to him.

And to make matters worse than that they already are, he’s also a narcissist with his own television programme and newspaper.

Real life Looney tunes.

Ara veru purcinell.

That same attitude might explain why the Nationalist Party is held to such high expectations, while institutionalised crime and corruption, politicians who have no respect for their own children, and no moral fibre whatsoever, are not ony expected and accepted in Labour, but actually lauded.

Typical Siculo-Maltese Roman Catholic (as opposed to Christian) logic. According to them, moral and ethical behaviour is only obligatory for practising Catholics, while “Liberals and progressives” are not bound by any moral code, and anything is permissible.

If they’re consigning their souls to eternal damnation, they might as well go the whole way: Quando si pecca, si pecca bene.

For all their pretentions about being secular and liberal, they are just old-fashioned, superstitious, non-Christian, lapsed Catholics obsessed with carnal sin.

Oh, if only it were just those two. I’ve got a particular bee in my bonnet at the moment with Maltese self-appointed experts of anything they touch. There’s a total lack of self-awareness wrapped up in a God complex.

To bring this back to your original topic, it is always a Maltese male, and usually one with no family responsibilities, as well as a history of acting very strangely with women. In Raphael’s case, there’s no hint of dominance, but the rest tend to be actively misogynist mummy’s boys.

What a shower of arseholes. I think I’m still traumatised by the electoral result, the responses to it, and all it tells me about the horrible environment in which I grew up. Thank God for glimmers of sanity, like this website, Manuel Delia’s blog, and Matthew Caruana Galizia’s Facebook page.

In the meantime, Mrs Azzopardi should gather her wits about her and mustn’t knuckle under the stress.

Always remember that ”meglio soli che mal accompagnati”.