My wife is my fair lady in the eyes of a gentleman. How do you understand the meaning of this poem?

To answer this question, we must first understand a concept:

Concept: Gentleman

In the pre-Qin period, the so-called gentleman refers to the son of the king, especially a person with high political status (not crowned or not yet king, generally understood as the king's reserve team).

In Confucius' Confucianism, a gentleman refers to a person with noble moral character.

In the later generations, due to the collapse of rites and music, the provisions on the hierarchy in Zhou Li were gradually ignored by the world, so the so-called gentleman in the later generations refers to people with noble morality.

In addition, the earliest poems about gentlemen and ladies came from the Book of Songs, "My Fair Lady, Gentleman is Good."

Because the time of The Book of Songs is in the pre-Qin period, the so-called gentleman in this poem refers to the son of the king.

Then this passage should be understood as follows: a gentle and lovely woman with elegant temperament is what a gentleman loves.

Of course, after the Warring States period, the change and popularization of the concept of a gentleman led to the change of a gentleman from a "son of a king" to a "man of noble character" or a general term for men.

Therefore, to understand the meaning of this poem in your question, we must first confirm what era this poem is.

Generally speaking, before the Qin dynasty, a gentleman was called "the son of the king"; After the Qin Dynasty, it was "the general name of men".