Wife facts for kids
A wife (pl.: wives) is a woman in a marital relationship. A woman who has separated from her partner continues to be a wife until their marriage is legally dissolved with a divorce judgment. On the death of her partner, a wife is referred to as a widow. The rights and obligations of a wife to her partner and her status in the community and law vary between cultures and have varied over time.
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Etymology
The word is of Germanic origin from the Proto-Germanic word wībam, which translates into "woman". In Middle English, it had the form wif, and in Old English wīf, "woman or wife". It is related to Modern German Weib (woman, female), Danish viv (wife, usually poetic), and Dutch wijf (woman, generally pejorative). The original meaning of the phrase "wife" as simply "woman", unconnected with marriage or a husband/wife, is preserved in words such as "midwife", "goodwife", "fishwife" and "spaewife".
Changes after marriages
After marriage, it is generally expected in many cultures that a woman will take her husband's surname, though this is not universal. A married woman may indicate her marital status in a number of ways: in Western culture, a married woman would commonly wear a wedding ring, but in other cultures, other markers of marital status may be used. A married woman is commonly given the title "Mrs", but some married women prefer to be referred to as "Ms", a title which is also used by preference or when the marital status of a woman is unknown.
Related terminology
A woman on her wedding day is usually described as a bride. Occasionally, this naming is considered appropriate after the wedding ceremony or the honeymoon, though she is typically called a wife within the marriage. If she is marrying a man, her partner is known as the bridegroom during the wedding and within the marriage is called her husband.
In the older customs, which are still followed by the Roman Catholic ritual, the word bride actually means fiancée, and applies up to the exchange of matrimonial consent (the actual marriage act). From that point, even while the rest of the very ceremony is ongoing, the woman is a wife and no longer considered as a bride. Hence, the bridal couple is no longer referred to as such, but instead as the newlywed couple or "newlyweds".
Unlike mother, a term that puts a woman into the context of her children, "Wife" refers to the institutionalized relation to the other spouse. In some societies, especially historically, a concubine was a woman who was in an ongoing, usually matrimonially oriented relationship with a man who could not be married to her, often due to a difference in social status.
The term wife is most commonly applied to a woman in a union sanctioned by law (including religious law), but not to a woman in an informal cohabitation relationship, which may be known as a girlfriend, partner, cohabitant, significant other, concubine, mistress, etc. However, a woman in a so-called common law marriage may describe herself as a common law wife, de facto wife, or simply a wife. Those seeking to advance gender neutrality may refer to both marriage partners as "spouses". In response to this naming change, many countries and societies are rewording their statute law by replacing "wife" and "husband" with "spouse". A former wife whose spouse is deceased is a widow.
Termination of the status of a wife
The status of a wife may be terminated by divorce, annulment, or the death of a spouse. In the case of divorce, terminology such as a former wife, former-wife or ex-wife is often used. In regard to annulment, such terms are not strictly accurate. This is because annulment, unlike divorce, is usually retroactive, meaning that an annulled marriage is considered to be invalid from the beginning as though it had never taken place. In the case of the death of the other spouse, the term used is widow. The social status of such women varies by culture. In some places, they may be subject to potentially harmful practices, such as widow inheritance or levirate marriage, or social stigmatization. In some cultures, the termination of the status of wife makes life itself meaningless. In the case of those cultures that practice sati, a funeral ritual within some Asian communities, a recently widowed woman intentionally dies upon the husband's funeral pyre.
Legal rights of the wife
The legal rights of a wife have been subject to debate since the 19th century in many jurisdictions. The subject was in particular addressed by John Stuart Mill in The Subjection of Women (1869). Historically, many societies have given sets of rights and obligations to husbands that differ vastly from the sets of rights and obligations given to wives. In particular, the control of marital property, inheritance rights, and the right to dictate the activities of children of the marriage, have typically been given to male marital partners. However, this practice was curtailed to a great deal in many countries in the twentieth century, and more modern statutes tend to define the rights and duties of a spouse without reference to gender. Among the last European countries to establish full gender equality in marriage were Switzerland, Greece, Spain, and France in the 1980s. In various marriage laws around the world, however, the husband continues to have authority. For instance, the Civil Code of Iran states in Article 1105: "In relations between husband and wife; the position of the head of the family is the exclusive right of the husband".
Exchanges of goods or money
In some parts of the world, traditional payments or exchanges are typically made, including:
- the bride or her family bring her husband a dowry,
- the husband or his family pay a bride price to the bride's family,
- both payments are exchanged between the families,
- or the husband pays the wife a dower.
The purpose of the dowry varies by culture and has varied historically. In some cultures, it was paid not only to support the establishment of a new family, but also served as a condition that if the husband committed grave offenses upon his wife, the dowry had to be returned to the wife or her family. Due to this condition, the dowry was often made inalienable by the husband during the marriage. Today, dowries continue to be expected in parts of South Asia such as India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, and conflicts related to their payment sometimes result in violence.
Changing of name upon marriage
In some cultures, particularly in the Anglophone West, wives often change their surnames to that of the husband upon getting married. For some, this is a controversial practice, due to its tie to the historical doctrine of coverture and to the historically subordinated roles of wives. Others argue that today this is merely a harmless tradition that should be accepted as a free choice. Some jurisdictions consider this practice as discriminatory and contrary to women's rights, and have restricted or banned it; for example, since 1983, when Greece adopted a new marriage law which guaranteed gender equality between the spouses, women in Greece are required to keep their birth names for their whole life.
Childbearing
Traditionally, and still in many cultures, the role of a wife was closely tied to that of a mother, by a strong expectation that a wife ought to bear children, while conversely, an unmarried woman should not have a child out of wedlock. These views have changed in many parts of the world. Children born outside marriage have become more common in many countries.
Although some wives in particular in Western countries choose not to have children, such a choice is not accepted in some parts of the world. In northern Ghana, for example, the payment of bride price signifies a woman's requirement to bear children. In addition, some religions are interpreted as requiring children in marriage; for instance, Pope Francis said in 2015 that choosing not to have children was "selfish".
Many traditions like a dower, dowry and bride price have long traditions in antiquity. The exchange of any item or value goes back to the oldest sources, and the wedding ring likewise was always used as a symbol for keeping faith to a person.
Images for kids
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16th-century Samurai Toyotomi Hideyoshi sitting with his wives and concubines.
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King Solomon with 3 of his many wives. Illustrated in 1668 by Giovanni Venanzi di Pesaro. According to Biblical account, Solomon had an obsession with women and fell in love with many.
See also
In Spanish: Esponsales para niños
- Bride kidnapping
- Wife selling
