Do people find "wife" a sexist word?

[LilKim]

Do you think gender specific words like husband and wife are obsolete and should be replaced with partner?

[seriousstan]

1. Only if I would want to be laughed at. What is wrong with gender specific?

It imparts more info. Isn't that what words are for?

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. Partner isn't a good enough word

because you have business partners, sexual partners, bridge partners ...

Practically, you're not going to get rid of words as fundamental as husband and wife, without a 1984-style authoritarian purging of the language.

[Wat_Tyler]

6. Partner is just so sexy, isn't it?

That's the problem there.

[RC]

3. No.

Most of us are gender specific. How is that sexist?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. no

I like the words husband and wife. My husband is a househusband, who stays at home and looks after the place (including fixing wonderful meals) while I commute to work and earn the money-I'm the working wife. As you can see, we use the old words in a modern situation.

[redqueen]

5. No, that's an instance where gender specificity actually makes sense.

[Ellen Forradalom]

7. "woman" is the more sexist word

being a contraction of "wife of man."

[Xithras]

19. Incorrect

In Old English, the word "mann" simply meant human or person, and "wif" was the word for female. "Wifmann", the antecessor to the modern word "woman", is simply a translation of the Old English term for "female person". The assumption that "wif" meant "wife" in the old sense is incorrect, as a man would have used the term for his daughters and mother as readily as the woman he was married to. In English, the term lives on in the word "wife" as in a married woman, but also in the terms midwife, housewife (which originally meant ANY woman, including servants, working to keep up a home), fishwife, etc. It also lives on in other languages, and in Dutch the word wijf is actually slang for "babe".

In case you're curious, there was originally a male equivalent. "Wer" was the OE word for male, and the male equivalent of wifmann was wermann. It fell out of use many hundreds of years ago, however, and has no modern equivalent.

[Redstone]

20. Thanks for the post

and for drilling another tired, old misconception. amazing how many people believe those--like the "rule of thumb" nonsense that so many folks swallow.

Redstone

[Ellen Forradalom]

22. How fascinating

Thank you. I do know that the 'mid' in midwife means 'with' (from OE 'med'?).

'Wer' lives on in the word 'werwolf.'

[Xithras]

26. Actually, that's a very interesting word

"Mid" may actually be one of the oldest continually used words in human history. It definitely traces it's lineage back to the proto-Germanic invasions of Europe starting in 2000BC, and possibly all the way back to the Kurgan peoples (quite possibly the forebears of nearly all modern Europeans, Turks, non-Arab middle easterners, and even some Indians and Pakistanis). As far back as we can reach, the word "mid" is there, and always with the same meaning of "with" or "toward".

You're right though, "midwif" roughly translates to "with the woman".

[Ellen Forradalom]

30. You going to write a book on this stuff?

I'll read it if you do.

[Xithras]

31. There are plenty of books on this stuff already

Which is where I get most of my information. I've always had an incredible fascination with Eurasian prehistory and found long ago that a detailed study of ancient language etymology can reveal details of trade and population migrations that are glossed over or skipped entirely in more traditional history texts. The appearance of a word from one culture into another is a reliable way to date the introduction of those populations to each other. An immediate divergence in the word pronunciation indicates that linguistic contact wasn't maintained, while the gradual replacement of one language by another is a reliable demonstration of population mixing though interbreeding. And the sudden replacement of one vocabulary with another? War.

Sadly, this is a dying branch of science. DNA testing is making the use of word etymology to track population migrations irrelevant, and we are quickly running out of material to analyze when puzzling these ancient languages together. In another 50 years I'd guess that most etymologists will be people like me...people who have real jobs and just study this stuff as a hobby. The proliferation of online language etymology sites also makes specializing in it kind of irrelevant. I have thousands of dollars worth of language history texts and papers sitting on my bookshelf, and up until a few years ago searching for this information meant understanding the basic language groups that each word was associated with so you'd know which tome to spend hours searching through to find the history of a word. Today there are simple online search engines that will allow you to type in any word to see its etymology (one warning though, I've found that they aren't always correct, and often miss language nuances). It's like all of the information research services that went under after the Internet and search engines put that power in everyones hands...there's just no reason to have etymologists around anymore :(

[Left Is Write]

Now THAT is interesting!

Thanks - I love to learn about that sort of language evolvement.

[Ellen Forradalom]

25. My parents called each other the "Grouch" and "Grouchess."

I think my husband and I should take on the mantle.

[Xithras]

27. Etymology is an interesting hobby

If you have a mind for history, tracing the etymology of words is a great way to track the interactions, movements, and combination of peoples through time. It was actually by tracing languages that archaeologists first figured out that most Europeans are descended from a single horse/warrior culture that developed on the Russian steppes about 6000 years ago. DNA testing today is confirming what etymologists figured out over 50 years ago...that most Europeans are related.

[rockymountaindem]

28. Some of the smartest people I know here at college

are linguistics grad students. I've learned tons just by hanging out with them.

[Niccolo_Macchiavelli]

33. hey!

wermann sounds like vermin...somehow. ;p There's the older German wyb (Weib) what was uses for wife. Nowadays it's considered derogative

[trof]

8. spouse?

non-gender specific, but married

[CaliforniaPeggy]

9. I don't find the word "wife" sexist at all, but

I'm 61 and probably old-fashioned. I remember the very first time my husband introduced me to some of his old friends as his wife. I was THRILLED. Of course, I was one of those girls who never thought she would be married or anything like that! But, nonetheless, I think that gender specific words are not obsolete at all.

OMIGOD! I just realized that THIS POST is my 300th! WOO-HOO! Drinks on me, all around!!!

:toast:

:toast:

[Arkana]

10. Nothing wrong with gender-specific

It's when you get into terms like "my woman", "wifey", "little woman", "ol' ball and chain" and others when it gets offensive.

[Sandpiper]

11. Partner sounds so bland and generic

I think most married couples think of their spouse as something more significant than a "partner."

I know I do.

[ScreamingMeemie]

12. I love it when MrG says, "My wife".

:hi:

[Maddy McCall]

13. Only if the husband is a paternalistic asshole who feels that....

he has to "defend," "protect," or "speak for" "the wife."

[Misunderestimator]

14. Well, I certainly do, but I'm gay...

would be VERY weird to call my partner either a husband or a wife.

[beyurslf]

29. I have gay and lesbian friends who are "married" (still have to put that i

quotes--oh for the day I don't) and they all call their spouses husband or wife. Sometimes I think they may say partner... but most of the time I just hear wife or husband.

[Orangepeel]

15. I like "husbandess" (n/t)

[Pithlet]

16. Or spousetress. n/t

[Orangepeel]

17. oh, that's even better!

I wish I'd thought of that one first!

:D

[Redstone]

18. If they do, they'd better not tell my wife,

because she'll slap them.

Redstone

[HEyHEY]

21. I think what my wife and I call each other is our choice

And if some PC thug doesn't like it they can go fuck themselves.

[pres2032]

24. amen!

[ChemEng]

23. No, I don't think so..n/t

[MrSlayer]

32. Yes, it is horribly degrading and ultra sexist.

I seethe with anger and disgust whenever I see it written or used as if it was acceptable in society. The hot bile that rushes to my throat whenever I hear an actor or politician thank their "HOLY SPOUSE" in such a manner is enough to burn through the hull of of a fucking battleship. We must outlaw this obscenity and have death the be punishment for breaking the HOLY COVENANT between a person and the Lord!

[Technowitch]

34. No. I have a wife. And I am one, too.

[Seabiscuit]

35. No. Why???