I may just be a reactionary psychopath (hold for multiple responses snipping just this part and responding with emoticons), but I absolutely can’t stand this slanguage trend of referring to one’s significant other as “the wife” or “the girlfriend,” or the absolute worst, just “the girl.”
As in “the other day, the wife and I went…” or “the girl is coming over later and we’re going to…”
Look, I understand that our sitcom-fueled toilet culture - the reason that “they hate our freedom” - shits on legitimate decency, love, and respect between people and glorifies mutual acrimony and misery. I get that we’re supposed to aspire to lives of hating our spouses, “the old ball and chain,” and that it’s funny and desirable to treat that person with the smallest modicum of respect and humanity.
But this is too far - it’s a direct refusal to even acknowledge your significant other with the title and sense of pride that should be reserved only for someone to which you’ve pledged your life. My wife. Mine. “The reason I get up in the morning.”
Instead, it’s fashionable to blow her off as “the wife.” “You know, bro, the wife. The wife and I are just hanging, dude-jammin’, bro!” Like she’s just another broseph that you happen to stick it in. “Oh, yeah, the wife…that jizz-jar that I like to keep around.”
I refer to Mrs. Giraffe as “the wife” sometimes. I’m fairly certain she doesn’t find it disrespectful in the least. Of course, that’s probably because the rest of the time I call her “that jizz-jar.”
There is a certain irony in using “the wife,” etc., in the vast majority of cases. Yes, on the surface it makes it seem disrespectful and such, but have you ever heard it used outside of TV? It is definitely used, in my personal experience, anyway, in a manner that definitely betrays this detached attitude.
I’ve already argued this more than I should. In short, monstro’s got it right.
I sympathize, VCO3, but it takes too long to type in “The-fucking-hellspawn-wench-who’s-ruined-my-fucking-godforsaken-life-and-makes-me-pray-for-some-kind-stranger-to-break-into-my-house-
and-drag-me-out-into-the-front-yard-and-out-of-the-goodness-of-his/hers/its-cold-black-heart-set-me-on-fire-and-as-I’m-writhing-there-in-flames-
calling-out-to-my-god-shoot-me-twelve-or-thirteen-times-and-send-me-to-hell-with-a-smile-on-my-face”.
I think it all depends on the context and frequency. Occasionally referring to “the wife” in casual context doesn’t necessarily mean the speaker has little to no respect for his wife. If it’s all the time, hmmm, yeah, there’s some sort of issue going on, a bit of sublimated hostility.
Strangely, I don’t hear any of my married, female friends refer to their husbands as “the husband” or “the boy”. More often it’s “DH” for “Dear Husband” on message boards, which, gack. I know some people dislike the applying of a poster’s board name to their spouse and children - phoukaman, phoukalet - but it’s at least a more personalized way of doing it, and there’s no confusion who we’re talking about.
phouka, I don’t know how old you are, but I’m going to assume that you’re older than myself. So, this may be a generational thing, but I have heard female friends refer to boyfriends as “the boy” or “the boyfriend.” I’m assuming its a reaction of sorts to “the wife,” but it does happen.
Huh. I can’t say I’ve ever given this issue a second’s thought up to now, but now that I am, it strikes me that the definite article “the” comes across as even more honorific than the possessive pronoun “mine”.
As in, this ain’t just any old wife of mine, this is THE wife. As in, there is only one wife in the world so far as I’m concerned, and she is THE wife.
Totally a generational thing; I’m 27, and every Paris Hilton glasses-wearing, wannabe Sex in the City wench in my age range who wants to maintain the illusion that it’s “just a casual thing,” that she’s not completely head-over-heels dependent on her boyfriend will go out of her way to say “the boy,” as though she’s fully in control and isn’t reading pink-covered ChickLit books every day and “he’s not that into you” and Cosmo articles left and right, as though she isn’t just terrified that if she doesn’t get married by age 30, she’ll die old and fat and alone.
Meh. Over-sensitive reactionary diatribe, inconsequential subject matter. Better suited to a mini-rant, even if that still doesn’t mitigate its lameness. I give it a 1. But a large-value 1, mostly for the amusing attempt at jive talk.
Well, “the wife” just read this. From now on I have to refer to her in all threads as “The Center of My Existance and the Person Without Whom My Life Would Be Meaningless.”
I agree that avoiding sitcoms as a model for interpersonal relationships is good advice in general.
However, I don’t think the expression “the wife” is really all that recent in origin. If anything, I’d have guessed that it’s more likely a holdover from the time when a wife was traditionally expected to be self-effacing, her role and identity wholly subservient to her husband-- “Mrs. Howard Jones,” etc. Come to think of it, in the Norman Lear-era sitcoms, wasn’t it generally the doughy older guys who’d groan that they had to get home to “the wife?” Pointing out that such usage can be demeaning isn’t reactionary, it’s progressive-- at least that’s the impression I got in Women’s Studies class.
I think it’s also possible for people to use the phrase affectionately, like “the old man/old lady.” But perhaps it’s only bikers that talk that way, I’m not sure. They kind of glossed over biker culture in Women’s Studies.
