«عِيبِ الرِّجَالْ قِلِّتْهُمْ»

The proverb moves blame away from men as such. What truly deserves complaint, it suggests, is not any particular failing a man displays but the lack of men, meaning being deprived of them altogether. The real misfortune is placed in their loss rather than in their faults.

Two situations call for it. Others may say it to comfort a woman whose husband has revealed something blameworthy, and she herself may answer a critic of her husband with it when the criticism is too accurate for her to contradict.

Use it to console a wife upset by some failing her husband has shown, or as the wife's own reply to someone faulting her husband when she cannot honestly deny the charge. It turns criticism aside rather than disputing it.