Example - “The wife and I went shopping today.”
Bugs the hell out of me, and I hear it all the time.
My father used this. Made me cringe every time I heard it. It objectifies one’s wife, in my opinion.
“The chair and I went sitting. The van and I went riding. The wife and I…”
In the scope of life, if a person is otherwise good to his/her spouse, it’s really a small thing and likely just an expression someone picked up, but yes, it bugs the hell out of me, too.
Maybe they really mean THE wife-- THE one and only wife for them… Yah, no.
I know several people who also refer to their kids as ‘the kid/boy/girl’. It sounds odd to me. I was wondering if it was a a language/cultural thing since they are all Indians. Perhaps in their native language it is common to say something like ‘the boy’ instead of ‘my son’.
My wife’s family does this, and it drives me nuts. She’s one of three sisters, and most of her cousins are women. So the spouses are all men. And with the exception of my wife, they all refer to their spouses as “my husband,” even when talking to other family in a very casual setting.
Thanksgiving dinner, a daughter to her mom: “my husband and I made the Hamburger Helper. He wanted to use real sour cream but I said it was too expensive.”
One sister to another: “my husband found this great deal on tube socks at Wal-Mart yesterday.”
Christmas dinner, one woman addressing her spouse directly: “husband, it’s time to quiet down. Daddy’s gonna pray before we eat.” [Yes. For real. She addresses her own husband that way.]
(I married into a redneck family. These are not exaggerated.)
It took me a while to figure out why they do this, and then one day it clicked: men, to them, are simply a means of survival. With two exceptions none of the women work and are wholly supported by their spouses. Having a husband is a signal of sorts that they have achieved the status that is expected in their family: to be a wife and a mother, and that’s it. The actual man they marry doesn’t really matter, as long they have one.
Thus in their mind a husband is an object: something they acquire to serve a practical purpose, like a owning a car or getting a gym membership.
My wife, for her part, eschews this behavior and has received no small amount of flak from her mom and her sisters for it. Being an independent woman just isn’t done!
I can only surmise that men who say similar things about their wives have a similar disregard for them as actual individual people.
Well, hmm, sounds like that’s a different thing. So they refer to their husbands in a generic term around friends and family instead of, say, “Dave and I made Hamburger Helper?” That is certainly odd.
I’m talking specifically about THE wife. Guys will say MY kids, MY dog, MY folks, THE wife. But this is only in conversations with strangers or loose acquaintances who might not understand who they were talking about if they’d just said “Susan.”
So what do any of you suggest?
“My wife” instead of “The wife”? Granted, Lancia’s example is super wonky, but if I said my wife’s first name, none of you would really know who I’m talking about. If I called her “The bitch,” well that is certainly worse than MW, but basically they’re the same.
In a “Seinfeld” episode, he and Courtney Cox were fake-being a married couple and were getting a kick out of calling each other The Wife or My Hubby.
Again, suggestions?
I’ve made incidental fun of this very phenomenon by referring to my girlfriend at the time as “the Donna”. As in…
• feed the cat
• make the bed
• hug the donna
• do the laundry
She threw a pillow at me…
“The wife” doesn’t bother me (nor does “the girlfriend”). Both are better than “my old lady”. Nor does, “the kid” unless there are several and you can’t figure out who they’re talking about.
Ok, referring to one’s own spouse as “husband” is weird, unless you’re going for a jokey, old-timey, deliberately weird vibe.
And I have redneck relatives myself. Once my nephew was born, my dad began referring to himself ***in the third-person ***as “Grandpa” and he started calling my stepmother as “Grandma”. I had to tell him to knock it off when he’s talking to me, because he isn’t MY grandfather and it’s freaking me out. I think it’s a cultural/regional thing; the man has a master’s degree for god’s sake.
I also dislike all variants on Grandma and Grandpa such as mee-maw, pawpaw, grammy (my mom uses this one, ugh), grampy, and so on. Once the child is able to say “Grandma” or “Grandmother”, FFS, say that! (I realize I’m weird here).
A psychologist friend once told me that he always introduced his wife as, “This is Sue, my wife” rather than, “This is my wife, Sue” because the first put the focus on her as a person in her own right, and the second put the focus on the relationship to him.
Perhaps there is a degree of subtleness here that simply eludes me. If I say refer to my wife as “my wife” when talking to, say, my mother I would consider that extremely rude. My mom knows who my wife is, and by not referring to her by name I’m objectifying her. Conversely, if I’m someplace public and refer to my wife as “THE wife” to someone I don’t know, it has the same effect—namely, objectifying my spouse. Naturally, if I’m talking to a stranger and refer to “Susan,” it would be foolish to expect them to know who I’m referring to. However, saying “my wife” is certainly acceptable. Saying “the wife” is rude, but this is a IMHO, YMMV type thing.
And burpo, suggestions for what, exactly? How to deal with people who refer to their spouses as objects? Tell them to read Sartre, and come back when they have questions.
Why does it bug you? And what are people supposed to say instead?
“My wife and I went shopping today”? Nothing wrong with that, but it sounds a little more formal and a little more redundant (who else’s wife would we have thought you meant?).
“Ann and I went shopping today”? Only works if you’re talking to someone who knows who Ann is.
“My wife, Morgan Fairchild (whom I’ve slept with) and I went shopping today”? Yeah, that’s the ticket.
I was never fortunate enough to read much Sartre, but the little woman, philosophy was her minor.
Sorry, I meant suggestions of what to use instead of THE wife. MY wife seems (although I use it constantly) possessive.
Does any husband object to MY husband (You never hear THE husband)? I don’t.
And BTW, we’re ALL objects until we get to know each other.
Saying MY wife is no more formal or possessive than any of these other common sentences that nobody would think twice about:
“My father and I went to the store.”
“My aunt and I went to the store.”
“My sister and I went to the store.”
“My cousin and I went to the store.”
“My daughter and I went to the store.”
It’s not until you get to wife that people suddenly alter their habits and say “the” instead of “my.” And, IME, they do it in order to distance themselves from that relationship. I feel like it’s synonymous with “The ol’ ball and chain.” Al Bundy should say “the wife” for comedic effect. The rest of us should refrain.
That’s not a matter of being able to pronounce things, though. It’s a matter of being able to keep 4+ people straight.
I mean a kid can have 4 grandparents. If grandparents are divorced, they could have 8. And they can also have great-grandparents.
People can be “grandmother Jane” and “grandmother Mary,” all the way down the line. But that’s boring as fuck and a mouthful. And not at all endearing!
Instead you get grammy and grampy, mee-maw and paw-paw, great grandma gigi and geepy, and all sorts of lovely, endearing, special names for all of the people who love your child.
Is that so bad?
(FWIW I only had 2 grandparents by the time I was born so I ended up with grandma and grandpa. My nieces have 6 grandparents and 4 great-grandparents so everyone got special names.)
I never say, “the wife”. I say, “the boss”.
This is how I see it, too. Saying ‘the wife’ seems to imply the relationship is more impersonal than saying ‘my wife’. And it sounds like the speaker is trying to emphasize that difference. At a basic level, it sounds syntactically wrong to me. It sounds as awkward to me as saying ‘the mother and I went to the store’. Since it sounds weird to me, I infer the speaker is trying to convey something is different about the relationship. I also know it could just be a cultural convention, so I don’t think about it too much, but it sounds wrong and always stands out to me.
Sometimes I’m amazed at the things that bother people.
Is saying “The kids and I yadda yadda…” or “The kids have eaten lunch…” acceptable?
I’ve heard people refer to “the kid(s),” “the dog,” “the cat,” and occasionally “the parents.” I’m not sure why “the” is more common or sounds more natural with some relationships than with others. Maybe it’s a matter of whether or not someone’s part of the speaker’s household? Maybe it’s a matter of what rolls off the tongue more easily?
If you have evidence that people who say “the wife” have a different attitude toward, or different quality of relationship with, their spouses than people who don’t, I’d love to see it. Until then, I don’t buy it.
In Indian culture, there is a reluctance to refer to or address people close to you by name. If the person is your “elder,” then it is disrespectful to do so. If the person is your wife or child, it can be seen as indelicate to refer to the person by name in the third person. It’s always okay to say “my wife” or “my son’s mother,” but to say “Sonia” can create an impression that you’re saying something that should be saved for the bedroom. And to refer to your son by name can create an impression that you are being boastful.
I say “the warden”.
Seriously, most people who say “the wife” usually mean it in a negative context, and are doing it on purpose.
“Can you meet the guys bowling this weekend?”
-“Probably. Let me ask the wife first.”
But I think some of you are reading waaay to much into this. Women referring to their husband doesn’t mean they married the first person that they could and they are objectifying themselves or whatever it is you’ve projected onto them.