Cut up about wife being clever (6)
I believe the answer is:
shrewd
'clever' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'cut up about wife' is the wordplay.
'cut up' becomes 'shred' (I've seen this before).
'about' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'wife' becomes 'w'.
'shred' placed around 'w' is 'SHREWD'.
'being' is the link.
(Other definitions for shrewd that I've seen before include "worldly wise" , "Fly" , "sharp" , "Canny and with sound judgement" , "Penetrating" .)