In one of the traditional Scottish ballads, the "wife"-by-capture and abduction, who has lived with and borne six sons to Lord I-forget-his-name, learns that he is going elsewhere to bring back a rich (and legitimate) bride, and that the heroine will now be demoted to housekeeper, baker, (and I suspect, alternate bed-warmer) etc.

After he's been gone eight to nine months, she sees him coming with the bridal train, and asks her oldest son,

Oh, shall I dress in green, she said,
Or shall I dress in black?
Or shall I go down to the raging main
And send my soul to wrack?

Green here is the color of jealousy, and black I take to be for mourning. Her other option, as she sees it, is to commit suicide in the sea.

Her son tells her,

You need not dress in green, he said,
Nor shall you dress in black.
But welcome, welcome my father dear
As he's bringing of his new bride back.

Cold comfort.

Dave Oesterreich