There’s bound to be a row

Taken from Poets Box (Glasgow) broadside dated Dec 1871

I'm a poor unlucky married man, I've such an awful wife, 
To please her I do all I can, but still she plagues my life; 
If I do everything that's right, she'll find a fault somehow, 
And if I but stay out all night, there's bound to be a row.

There's bound to be a row, there's bound to be a row, 
Do all in life to please my wife, there's bound to be a row.

She wakes me in the morning in an awful cruel way.
She kicks me on the floor, and not a cross word do I say; 
And I have to wash my stockings, and my shirts and fronts, I vow,
And if I don't, wash hers as well there's bound to be a row,

She's taken in a lodger, and he's single by-the-by,
She says I must make room for him, and on the sofa lie; 
They eat the meat, give me the bones, that don't seem right somehow,
But if I dared say half as much, there's bound to be a row.

Sometimes she gives a party to some friends, they dine at eight,
And I've to hurry home from work, to be in time to wait; 
And when they bustle me about, if I doesn't scrape and bow, 
And say, yes sir, and thank you please, there's bound to be a row

When I've earned my wages, after working all the week,
I turn every ha'penny in, and then she has the cheek 
To give me two pence for myself, and for that I have to bow;
But if I spend it all at once, there's bound to be a row