Why do we say "Husband"? The word "husband" means care taker like animal or plant "husbandry" that is, to care for plants or livestock. If I marry a woman I certainly won't see my self as her caretaker. I find the whole thing creepy and demeaning. It all goes back to the whole protector provider problem we have with relations between the sexes.
I have never felt a need to protect women I am with, or otherwise care for them. That doesn't mean that if I'm with a girl and she needs help she's on her own, it just means we look out for each other. The idea that a woman would pick me out because she thought I would make a good bodyguard is just weird (for lack of a better term). I do have a personality and I would like to think that a woman would choose me because I have something in common with her, because of attributes I possess that she admires. If I thought she was looking to hide behind me It would make my skin crawl.
I also wonder about the motivations of men who feel protective of women and look for a woman who seems weak and vulnerable. I feel attracted to strong, intelligent, dignified women because I admire them. I can't imagine what would be the attraction to a woman who is afraid and vulnerable unless or course a man was thinking "this woman needs me I can be the boss, I can control her" Think about it, a woman who is so weak she can't even open the door for her self is not going to question what you tell her, she is just going to passively sit there and take orders. Is this what the "knight in shining armor" is really thinking? Keep her home, keep her isolated, keep her financially powerless?
I feel we need to seriously rethink the whole idea of men as husbands; the whole thing needs to be replaced with a better philosophy of sex relations. We need a system of mutual respect, with human dignity for each partner and a focus on equality.
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shf84- very nice post. It may seem crazy to you as an enlightened man, but yes, many men really do want to take care of us. I have actually had males tell me that I have bad luck with dating because I am "too independent, I don't seem like I need a boyfriend." (Well, yeah, no one NEEDS a boyfriend.) A lot of guys I have dated seem to want to be a dad rather than a partner. They want to solve problems for me, tell me what to do, etc. These are the men I ditch immediately! I agree with you 100% that being in a relationship is about helping EACH OTHER. I do feel a tiny bit safer at night, etc, when there is a boyfriend next to me, but not because he's a boy, because he's a friend.
Hmm, I think at some point a word means what it has come to mean for the last several years, decades, centuries or what have you. When I hear husband, I think "legally married man," not anything else. Husbands can be caretakers, abusers, deadbeat dads, or whatever. It doesn't make me think of animal husbandry at all, which I'd argue is the less commonly used phrase out of the two.
However, I do think lots of men want to protect the woman they're with. Ideally, both halves of the couple protect each other, socially and emotionally if not physically.
I don't know - I think there's a lot of historical residue still clinging to the word. One thing that people who are freaked out about gay marriage always ask of gay and lesbian couples is "who's going to be the wife" or "who's going to be the husband?" And the fact that "husband" and "wife" still carry very different connotations in our culture is significant.
Yeah-- like I said, to me husband means married MAN. And wife means married WOMAN. So there are still gender differences clinging to the word, but if you don't like those you can use spouse. I don't think there's anything other than the gender really affecting the word though. The OP brought up the connection to words like animal husbandry, and I dunno, I'm not seeing that as something to worry too much about. I've studied linguistics, and its funny how the meanings of words change so much over time. If you start worrying about what the roots of words used to mean hundreds of years ago, you'll never be able to speak a guilt-free sentence.
If you don't want to call your male legal partner your husband that's fine, but I don't think the idea that its connected to animal or plant husbandry is the best reason.
You're right. There are a lot of 'protective' men out there who seek out weaker partners in order to control and abuse them. I was engaged to one once.
However, protecting loved ones, i.e. acting in the interest of those you love when they're not able to, is positive -- and frankly I wouldn't marry a dude who didn't feel protective towards me because even the toughest among us have bad days. Think about it. Your parents (hopefully) protect you when you're little, and you do the same for them when you're grown. You protect your friends and they you according to who's in need. You protect the dog and visa versa. Partners protect each other.
But in that case, the protective instinct is reciprocal, which is not implied by the terms "husband" and "wife."
Sort of. "Wife" and "husband", according to the OED at least, imply separate-but-equal protection. Like most separate-but-equal arrangements, the 'equal' is usually lacking.
Like you might, I often prefer to say "partner". But, perhaps because I'm a Chaucer enthusiast, "Wife" has very positive connotations for me.
I hate it when people refer to my "husband". I just call him James. He also hates calling me his "wife". I think it has something to do with the fact that we're both in our early 20s, so it also makes us feel old. We just call each other by our names and eventually people figure it out on their own lol.
i don't see how husband means caretaker. husbandry likely came after the word husband was in common use and had various meanings over time
Actually, in English anyway, the terms "husband" and "husbandry" developed concurrently during the same time period. But that's because "husband" had nothing to do with marital status and just meant "head of household" so the whole protector, master, and caregiver thing was built in. But the two terms are etymologically connected.
I am curious about the definition of husband as a caretaker. The etymology of the word points to husbondi or hus baand which means house dweller and came to be understood as master of a house. On the other hand, wife was simply the word for woman like in midwife. The male equivalent to wif was wer which fell out of use in standard english outside of things like werewolf.
I don't have any problem myself with husband and wife, but usually refer to my spouse or partner depending on the situation. I tend to use husband/wife when specifically talking about marriage, but default to spouse or partner in regular conversation.
My understanding when I did a Greek-English word study of this in grad school (it's been awhile) was that husband was similar to our concept of head of household (except intrinsically male for them, of course). So marital status was irrelevant, as you note. And since it was the male head of household's job to protect/take care of/manage everything and everyone in the household, what we now think of as husbandry was naturally a part of this.
Hi Rachel - that is interesting! The actual term husband became husbandry (in terms of animal husbandry) because it was used as shorthand for landholder or farmer with connotations of peasantry. I believe the origins were Norse/Norwegian but will have to look it up again. I am definitely not saying that there isn't an issues with male/married male = head of household, but it doesn't seem like the actual etymology of the word husband came from the idea of a caretaker or caretaking as much as it came from land-owning/house-dwelling.
On a completely informal piece...it's odd how people will speculate on word origins based on what we do know. I think it must be part of our interest in patterns. I just asked a friend what they though husband meant and they came up with "house bound" meaning that it was a man with a bond to his own household. It isn't quite correct, but I wonder if that is how folk etymology gets started.
I have an interesting book at home called Gender Shifts in the History of English that talks about husband/wife stuff I believe. I don't have it on hand right now, but I will take a look later and let you know if it has anything good to add to this.
Yeah - I've always found etymology fascinating. The other really interesting thing about this is that in both English and Greek, there's a strong class issue and a strong normative element built in. The class issue is that calling someone a husband or referring to his husbandry indicated that he ranked high enough to own or control his own land, but not high enough to be a landlord who would be able to delegate all the caretaking duties. Like the "gentleman farmers" of later years.
The normative element is that the well-being of everything and everyone in the household was attibuted to the male head of household. So even if he delegated work to the wife, kids, slaves, or hired hands, it was still his responsibility to make sure that things were done correctly, since they didn't have the kind of moral standing or natural competence to be held to this standard.
I always enjoy these kinds of word studies because they reveal how deeply normative language really is.
Score! There is a partial preview of the book up on Google - http://books.google.com/books?id=VzzOWXsmb2QC&dq
It's a really interesting read. It looks like some of the gendered pairs (boy/girl, husband/wife) are included in the preview as well. Enjoy!
Oh yeah, it looks really good. Thanks for the link!
It's incredibly distressing that there are so many men who want to "take care of" a woman, and it's also incredibly distressing that there are so many women who want to be "taken care of" by a man. It's also nearly impossible to explain to people who adhere to this outdated notion of traditional gender roles why it's harmful to both.
Don’t I know it! I have tried, and it’s like you want to abandon women in burning buildings or something. I’ve actually been called a woman hater for my views.
We just use the term "partner" (we're not married, but are widely perceived as being married), and people find it very strange. I think my students often speculate or conlude that I'm a lesbian. Then when they run into us at the grocery store or bar they'll be standing there in a little group pointing at us and whispering. When my partner draws my attention to it and I glance over at them they stop doing it for a minute and smile and wave. But as soon as they think my attention is directed elsewhere they go back to whispering about it and staring at us. I think this is partially a cultural feature of living in one of the square states, since I don't remember people obsessing as much about sexual orientation and partnered status on the west coast, or assuming that "partner" was an exclusively gay term. But boyfriend/ girlfriend is so high school, and husband/ wife carries so much cultural baggage and isn't even really accurate for us. And at least "partner" implies full reciprocity.
Interesting discussion. To me it always meant care taker. But apparently there is some debate. One person wrote that she would not marry a man who did not feel protective toward her. I would think that is rational since obviously we all seek to protect our loved ones even our pets. And yes, like any ordinary human being, I to feel protective towards those I love. I even feel protective toward total strangers if I think they are in some sort of trouble. I also feel protective toward groups that I feel are oppressed by society. I think that’s true of most of us on this list and indeed the bulk of human kind. What I have a problem with is when some one says it’s my job to protect women because I am and man and that’s what men do.
It doesn’t take genius to extrapolate the reasoning. People that believe in this arraignment think that women are too immature, cowardly, weak and intellectually inferior to protect them selves. So yes I want to protect those I love, and yes I have your back etc. (isn’t that a given in any loving relationship?) But the whole “women need protecting, need providing for because their incompetent” thing can’t be thrown away soon enough in my opinion.
Hmm. I've never had negative connotations (or any strong connotations, really) for the word "husband," but the word "wife" freaks me out. It makes me think of a subservient 1950's woman in the kitchen. *shudder*