Man here is in the sense of ‘servant’. The female equivalent is like mistress like maid. Cf. [Petronius Satyricon lviii.] qualis dominus, talis et servus, as is the master, so is the servant; early 14th-cent. Fr. lon dit a tel seigneur tel varlet, it is said, for such a lord such a manservant.
Suche maystre suche man.
[1530 J. Palsgrave L'éclaircissement de la Langue Française 120V]
s.v. Similes, A lewde [foolish] servaunt with an yll master. ‥Lyke master lyke man.
[1538 T. Elyot Dict.]
The Prouerbe be true that sayes, ‘like master, like man’, and I may add, ‘like lady, like maid’. Lady Hercules was fine, but her maid was still finer.
[1620 T. Shelton tr. Cervantes' Don Quixote ii. x.]
‘Like master, like man,’ Marcy's father had said bitterly ‥of the disappearance of an entire set of Dresden plates.
[1979 M. G. Eberhart Bayou Road iv.]
‘I'm sorry,’ said Miss Finch, ‘but she just doesn't like men.’ Like mistress, like maid, was what Sloan's grandmother would have said to that, but Sloan himself, wise in his own generation, kept silent.
[1990 ‘C. Aird’ Body Politic (1991) xii. 131]
Related to: employers and employees
Bibliography of major proverb collections and works cited from modern editions is available here.
