What is your opinion on the name tag of 'wife'?

I call my wife my bride have for over twenty years now. GQ your description seems to fit my wife pretty well, have we met?

It depends on how you use it, of course, just like a lot of words. You can introduce her to someone as your wife like many people do, or you could say it in a derogatory way like, “She’s just a housewife”.

To me, the word “wife” means “married woman”. Just like “husband” means “married man”.
I don’t think it’s a label as much as it is fact.

I have always wanted to have one: someone to do the cooking and cleaning, keep everything organized, etc.

Sometimes we will call each other “husband” or “wife”. It’s a term of respect, love, and representative of our commitment to each other. We have spent a lifetime together, and we intend to stay together until we die.

I feel the name tag of ‘wife’ though we are legally married doesn’t apply to me because I don’t feel like a woman and generally speaking, mostly women apply that term of have it applied to them. In my head, the terms ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ are loaded and not with positive value, for me but for others, they can be used in a neutral way. What comes to mind are traditional gender norms which aren’t suitable for our marriage. So, no..for me, it’s nothing desirable to want to be – I would always rather be his partner and he be mine. A wife can be anything, I suppose, in reality but the image it conjures in my head is one of nagging – that’s a socially conditioned message, obviously, and I don’t give it value. It’s not a title I respect, no – I respect my title as mom a lot more.

I tried being a man’s wife .. twice. I hated being referred to or introduced as ‘my wife’. It sounded like I was an appendage, i.e., my arm or my leg. I referred to and introduced my husbands by their names and wanted the same. Of course ‘wife’ has historical and social stigma attached to it, as does ‘mother-in-law’. American English is inherently sexist and racist. My guess is that most languages are, since sexism and racism are globally practiced.

A wife is a married woman. I love being a wife and I love having one. In my case, the term wife is a radical statement.

Sweet holy moly, ”Wife” is a title I highly respect. IMO a wife is only under the umbrella of marriage, and attached to the female part of the marriage. Wives are female, husbands are male –sorry that is the way it is hurl rocks if you will—. Those who care not to be married I say should not worry about if they have or is called ”wife” or not because they care not to be apart of the organization or whatever that a wife or husband is apart of.

is a wife a nurturer , motherly figure, soul mate, sexual partner, frump, nag, reliable, exciting ? Are they a combination of all these things or something else? I think a wife can and is a combo of many things. Some traits you hope are higher on the ladder than others. You want your wife to be dependable, logical, loyal, devoted, sexy and compassionate. She can be a warden, a nag, a critic, and such but one hopes in very small portions.

To hold the title of ”wife” is to say you have someone who is officially committed to you and cares for the world to know it. It is like you can be on a team but you really don’t feel you are on the team until you are allowed to suit up. It is as if you are officially on the roster. Those who care so hard to avoid the moniker, title, etc, I feel are more scared to truly commit that deeply because they, in the back of their mind, don’t truly trust the sticking power of their union.

@Hypocrisy_Central I respect your right to your thoughts, and our right to agree to disagree. But not only does your answer prove the point of a stigmatic, sexist language, i.e., “She can be a warden, a nag, a critic, and such but one hopes in very small portions”, you also made assumptions and attacks against anyone who disagrees with your beliefs.

“Those who care so hard to avoid the moniker, title, etc, I feel are more scared to truly commit that deeply because they, in the back of their mind, don’t truly trust the sticking power of their union.”
I was a wife, for an accumulated eighteen years. How about you?

@Ivy But not only does your answer prove the point of a stigmatic, sexist language, i.e., “She can be a warden, a nag, a critic, and such but one hopes in very small portions”, you also made assumptions and attacks against anyone who disagrees with your beliefs. The subject matter or question is about wives. They can be a warden, nag, or critic just as an employer can be to his/her workers, a husband can be to his wives, or parents to their children; we are not speaking all solely of wives devoid of anyone else. Many times people want to forget the question content and narrow it down to their own personal space but we are only dealing with the wives if it were everyone I suspect those things would still apply.

I was speaking of those who avoid officially not to be called a wife because they avoid the process by which they would actually be a wife.

I am sure my WIFE likes it. Or she would not be my “wife”.

I think it’s a word to describe a married female. That’s it.

i particularly despise `the wife’ or ‘the missus’ above all else.

@mammal Add to those, ‘the ol’ lady’, ‘the ball & chain, or for that matter, the naming of a shirt ~ ‘wife-beater’.

The term wife doesn’t bother me in any way. My husband has always been a highly respectful and loving husband. When he uses the term it is in a loving way. Neither of us holds negative connotations of those terms.

I did not think that the words “wife” or “husband” was given such thought.

@Ivy her in doors….the trouble and strife

She who must be obeyed! Don’t ya just love em….I know I do :¬)

What the word, “wife,” does not mean to me is the person who cooks and cleans or changes the diapers or stays up with sick kids or takes care of the house and the children. Wife does not mean “helpmeet” whatever that is. It is not someone I wish I had another of, so that we could be relieved of many chores. A wife is not a slave, in other words.

I do not wish we had a wife to do the cooking and cleaning. I wish we had a cook and a cleaner. She does the cleaning and a lot of administrative work for our kids or our house. I do the cooking and shopping and gardening and car maintenance. It would be nice to have someone to help us with all that stuff. Sometimes, in the evening, I just can’t face the idea of having to come up with another meal.

A wife, to me, is the woman I am married to. I married the woman I married for a reason. It was not because I wanted someone to serve me. I wanted someone who was smart, and could make her own way in the world, and could have fun with me, and who loved me. That’s not a wife. That’s the woman I fell in love with.

I married her. Then she became my wife. Because that’s what I say so people will understand our relationship. I do not introduce her as “my wife;” I introduce her as “my wife, Wundayetta.” That way people know her name, and our relationship. When she is introducing me to her friends (which is probably more often than me doing the introductions), she introduces me as “my husband, Wundayatta.”

She’s my wife. The person I am spending my life with. The person who loved me enough to hold onto me when I was doing my damnedest to make her hate me. I owe her my life.

A wife is someone to share my life with and deserves all my respect and love. I hold her highest in the world and my number one in life. She is the one I want to come home to after a long day at work. She is the one I respect so much I do half the cooking and house work. She is the one while sick for over a year I took total repsonsibility for and took care of all her needs while she was down. Included in that was laundry, cleaning, dishes, and everything else. Her medical needs were great and I trained to do it all while she was in the hospital.

I love being called “Wife” by my Husband. I love it when he says “My Wife….” and I love to call him my Husband.
I love it, because I married the right person.

Another call for the PC use of a word? Well, I’m an old fashion speaker, and the traditional use and meaning of wife is good enough for me.

I like it when my hubby calls me “wife”. He does it jokingly sometimes, like “Wife? Where’s my dinner?!?” and it just makes me giggle. We have the same weird sense of humor.

And to actually answer, to me a wife is a married woman. Pretty common use of the word.

I am a wife in the traditional sense. I am valued, respected, and loved. In my opinion, to give a word such as wife a new meaning cheapens and dilutes it.

I’ve found this thread very interesting, the views of both husbands and wives, and the obviously happy marriages represented here. But I’d like to point out (for consideration), that research suggests there are more unhappy marriages than happy ones, and in the U.S. Dept. of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Violence against Women: A National Crime Victimization Survey Report, nearly 2 in 3 female victims of violence were related to or knew their attacker. And that “almost 6 times as many women were victimized by intimates as those victimized by strangers, and did not report their violent victimization to police because they feared reprisal from the offender.”

In late 2008, Human Rights Watch reported that a “new government report showing huge increases in the incidences of domestic violence, rape, and sexual assault over a two-year period in the United States deserves immediate attention from lawmakers and the incoming administration. The statistics show a 42-percent increase in reported domestic violence and a 25-percent increase in the reported incidence of rape and sexual assault.”

“The National Crime Victimization Survey, based on projections from a national sample survey, says that at least 248,300 women were raped or sexually assaulted in 2007, up from 190,600 in 2005, the last year the survey was conducted. The study surveyed 73,600 women in 41,500 households. Among all violent crimes, domestic violence, rape, and sexual assault showed the largest increases.”

So if I could extend this question to those who answered positively about this word and a woman’s position in it, where is the American outrage and demand for protection of battered, raped or murdered wives? Where’s even the acknowledgment that all these answers, including mine, represent only a minuscule part of ‘the wife’ story and the value with which a wife is treated in our society?

@marinelife I’ve always wanted one too!

At one time my present husband was abusive. I was still a wife in every sense of the word, except that he did not value me like he does now. We were married in 1977.

He did not come by this change easily. I eventually got tired of being mistreated, and told him, “It’s divorce or counseling. Choose fast, or you won’t have a choice.” He chose counseling, and one night God showed up. He told me “The scales fell from my eyes.”

He changed overnight, and hasn’t gone backwards (I would not have tolerated that anyway). Anyway, it’s only getting better.

@snowberry Yey! Good for you and I am so happy for you both <hand clap>

Bless you HC. It’s awesome, and proof that miracles do still happen.

Or, proof that people can make decisions….....

wife…i have no desire to be married and dont have many thoughts about the word wife other than i hope for it to never apply to me…i’d much rather be refered to by my name.