The same complaint returns at 21:19, and this verse comes back word for word at 25:24. Chapter 19 made the point with a leaking roof.
Quick answer
Peace in a bad spot beats conflict in a good one. The verse is about a home at war, and it is not a description of women.
Read both lines
The flat roof was where you slept in summer and dried the grain, exposed and uncomfortable, and a corner of it is smaller still. So the trade being offered is a real one and deliberately unattractive, which is how a "better than" saying works. The Hebrew of the second line is compressed, literally a woman of contentions and a house of association, and the last phrase is difficult enough that translators handle it variously. What survives every reading is the comparison: shelter is not the same as peace, and a household in permanent conflict is worse than an uncomfortable night alone.
What it does not mean
This is not a verse about women as a class, and it cannot be used to label a wife. The same book closes with twenty-two verses of praise for a woman at 31:10–31, said 19:14 that a prudent wife is from the LORD, and elsewhere describes contentious men without ever generalizing from them. The verse is written from inside a marriage by someone who is half of it, and a man reading it as a description of his wife rather than of his household has already taken a side in the argument it describes. The catalog's standing rule also holds: a proverb may never be used to keep someone where they are being harmed. A house at war is a condition two people are living in, and where the conflict has become abuse, this verse is not the relevant sentence.
Related: Proverbs 21:19 · Proverbs 25:24 · Proverbs 19:13 · Proverbs 19:14 · Proverbs 27:15
New King James Version®, Copyright © 1982, Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved. Full copyright information. Scripture provided by API.Bible.
Go Deeper
If this verse has been used to put weight on you that it was never carrying, ask about it directly.