In the United States, the use of “partner” instead of “boyfriend” or “girlfriend”, and the use of “spouse” instead of “husband” or “wife”, are often meant to be inclusive of LGBT folks and to avoid heteronormativity and cisnormativity. It might mean the speaker is referring to a same sex relationship, but often just means the speaker wants to avoid exclusive and intolerant language and thoughtlessly enforcing the binaries. In either case it typically signals being LGBT safe in some sense.
Is this the same in England?
For that matter, how about elsewhere in the English speaking world?
To the extent that the different words have tidy translations, how about in the rest of the world in general?
To this Englishman, ‘partner’ refers to the person with whom you co-habit, but are not married to. This is entirely gender neutral. ‘Spouse’ is a married partner. It is gender neutral and is usually used to include both husband and wife. In the old days some companies offered benefits for ‘wives’. Naturally, they now offer them for spouses.
For a gay man to talk about his ‘husband’, or a gay woman about her ‘wife’ as they do, seems to be a way of emphasising their new found status and pride in being able to marry.
I doubt there is a norm for England. In London, I use ‘partner’ until someone corrects me to ‘husband’ or whatever - just part of the process of getting to know new people in a complicated society.
Here in Oz, it is common for “partner” to be used by marrieds as well as not. (In Oz we have a well developed form of common law marriage, so the distinction of having gone through a ceremony or not is much less important than in many other countries.) The term SO or “significant other” has been around for a few decades are still gets used, although “partner” seems to have become the most common term. All the preceding is pretty neutral to LGBT status (apart from the common law marriage).
I will note that a couple of people I know with gay kids do seem more comfortable using “partner” to refer to their child’s SO, and I rather suspect this comes not so much to be inclusive, but because they still find it a little hard to say “my son’s boyfriend”.
“Partner” has very occasionally caused some momentary confusion (and usually hilarity) when discussions of colleagues in the same medical or legal practice occurs.
I’m going to question your assumption here. You may be right, but at least among the people I talk with, I don’t hear connotations like those. Do you have more information supporting this?
Here are a couple examples of what you can see if you google the words “partner boyfriend girlfriend spouse husband wife” without the quotes:
“Taking the initiative to use an inclusive word like partner is tantamount to pinning a button to my chest that says “I care.” This goes for everyone, straight, bi-, gay, lesbian, or otherwise. Partner is a recognized word of safety and concern within the LGBTA community.”
[Why I say “partner” instead of boyfriend or girlfriend - ❤ It's Pronounced Metrosexual]
I do a lot of LGBT advocacy and education, and while one wouldn’t want to read too much into it or make too many assumptions, there’s definitely a tradition of promoting partner/spouse language to gently signal LGBT safety.
At least in the mid to late 2000’s (when I lived in the UK) the word “partner” seemed to indicate a person with whom you had an ongoing relationship with (say what Americans would call a significant other) without reference to what the exact status was; I heard it used for and by married couples.
I don’t think it had any relation to LGBT-friendliness or not.
I have increasingly noticed the use of “partner” in the US, and I find it kind of confusing, especially since SSM is now legal throughout the country. When I hear it, I’m not sure the person is referring to:
A spouse who is of the same gender.
A spouse who is of the opposite gender.
Someone with whom the person is romantically involved, but not married (of either the same or opposite sex).
Someone with whom the persons cohabits, but is not married (of either same or opposite sex).
It’s vague, and maybe that is the intent. I really don’t know. We used to use the term '“Significant Other”, but that seems to be falling out of fashion.
This. After referring to each other as “my partner” for 28 years, it’s wonderful to finally be allowed to call each other “my husband.” And we’re not quite ready to throw that away, in order to “avoid heteronormativity and cisnormativity” :rolleyes:. I’m old enough to remember when LGBT people were routinely attacked (or worse) by the police. Now we’re being attacked by the PC police.
As a Brit - what he said! It is a totally gender neutral way of referring to one part of a long term relationship, normally, but not always, where the couple are not actually married.
Significant Other is rarely used - and if I heard it I would think it was being used more as a joke!
Ah! I’m pretty sure you’re allowed and encouraged to use “husband” etc. But it isn’t cool for anybody else to. You have a special exemption from the police. Of course, that requires outing yourself to use the exemption.
Here on the left coast “partner” usually means a long term romantic relationship but not married in the legal sense, though I know traditionally married people who refer to their spouses as partners. It doesn’t bother me a bit. I have always thought “significant other” is pedantic, excessively syllabic, vague and discordant.
It’s cumbersome, true, but I still prefer “significant other” over “partner”. 1) we got used to using it, an everyone knew what it meant. 2) “partner” already means something, and now we’re adding more ambiguity to the exchange by using it.
I can understand wanting to avoid the use of boyfriend/girlfriend because I just think that sounds strange after a certain age. And I can understand using “spouse” rather than husband/wife in some situations - for example, “We cover spouses under our health insurance plan” (It’s easier than always using “husband or wife” in writing and eliminates the chance of saying “we cover your wife…” to a man who is married to a man) or even “Can I cover my spouse under your health insurance plan?”( you might not want to reveal the gender of your spouse) But there is one specific usage I’ve encountered from a few people, where “spouse” is used along with gendered words , and I don’t understand the reason for it. If someone says “My spouse hates her job” , I know the spouse is a woman and I don’t really understand the reason for avoiding “wife” in that situation.
I use “partner” for exactly the reasons described above. We are not married but “girlfriend” sounds both juvenile and temporary. If I have mentioned my partner then the chances are I will also mention her gender at some point so in context there is no ambiguity.
But except for people like me, your assumption seems to be that “husband” implies “wife.” If you think it does, doesn’t that make YOU heteronormative? And though I accept that for many people, gender is fluid, that doesn’t mean it MUST be, for everyone. That’s as much an error as assuming it’s not fluid for anyone. My husband and I both identify as men, however we define that term, with NO assumption of cisnormativity. In order to acknowledge the existence of shades of gray, we don’t have to disqualify black and white.
Actually, I’ve been out for 53 years. And can I claim this exemption on my tax return?
