please don't think of her as "HIS WOMAN" (or him as her man). this implies ownership, and marriage is not about ownership. he might have worn it out of respect/love for her, yes.
You should study some history to understand why western society consider a woman to be owned by her husband. In many tribal religions, before the global spread of Abrahamic religion, had a different concept of what was norm arrangement for a man and woman to have a sexual relationship. For example, in many Arab tribes, women belonged to tents. Men would visit those tents and as long as he financed the tent he could have sexual intercourse with all the females in the tent. Daughter, mother, didn't matter. Men would stay at the tent temporarily. This obviously meant they had no concept of family like how we do. In Abrahamic religions and western society a woman belongs to her husband as opposed to a piece of property. In such a society, women were shunned as if they committed adultery if they refused sex to the man who is currently financing their tent. This was a part of a Persian communism that existed about 2000 years ago. Obviously with the success of Abrahamic religion we kept the terms but forgot the meaning behind the terms. I would love to be able to give more precise details but I haven't reviewed these historical topics since high school.
Does that somehow make it not sexist? You gave the history of it but the parent comment was not arguing history. I'm not sure what your comment has to do with the parent.
Yes it does. The term, in origin, is not a topic that discrimination applies too. It merely means that in our civilisation lawful sexual intercourse is viewed to be legal through an agreement in between the husband and wife, provided it meets our sexual morales (you can't marry many relatives). Thus, he owns the legal rights for his sexual intercourse to be considered lawful. Unlike in other civilisations, for example the Mazdakian, where women were property of the state in a communist regime. Allowing legal sexual relations on a temporary basis when state condition were met. Where a man could be having legal sexual intercourse with both a mother and daughter for a few weeks. Part of the motive was that it was seen unfair that regular citizens didn't have access to the king's harems to do as they desire. Obviously, this was extremely discriminatory against women and viewed them all as only sexual objects. This is one of the greatest achievements of Abrahamic religion that such doctrines are long ago abolished.
To stress that this was the type of ownership implied. Never has it been legal right for a husband to allow a third party to have sexual intercourse with his wife, at the third party's pleasure. Despite this being the simplistic understanding of the term "his wife" may imply this.
If you want to understand terms in it's simplistic understanding, then I think you better worry about terms like sunrise/sunset.
> Thus, he owns the legal rights for his sexual intercourse to be considered lawful.
What? Since when do you need to "own the legal rights" to perform sexual intercourse? Are you saying I cannot legally have sex unless I'm married?
I'm having a hard time following what you're saying, because most of your post is just rambling. The Mazdakian? Nothing to do with us. Abrahamic religion abolishing sexist doctrines? Are you kidding me? The Bible is full of extremely sexist views. It treats women explicitly like objects.
None of your post has anything to do with my parent comment, nor the original. I feel there is a pattern here, because all of your other posts in this thread have been the same. Right now, in 2012, a man referring to his partner as "his woman" (or a woman referring to her partner as "her man") implies ownership and has a negative connotation.
By legal rights I mean for your sex not to be classed as rape. I really don't know how to correctly explain this topic. Sorry. I didn't really study these topics in English.
Islam took over Persia and put an end to Mazdakian belief. This is a credit to Abrahamic religion. The society you were born in could have been very different had Mazdak's ideas won. The concept of family would not exist and the gene pool would have very few trees. The idea of monogamous relationships are a given in our society and this is built on the success of Abrahamic religion removing competing systems almost entirely out of the conscience of human thought.
In history one could find other competing systems and the Mazdakian is just one example.
One must remember the bible was written before it's ideas were successful. To re-interpret it's ideas are after it's success may lead one to the wrong conclusions about what it actually was trying to convey. It may appear to be a lot more sexist than what it actually meant.
Please stop that PC nonsense. Marriage is ownership -- they have a monopoly on each others sexual-ability and in the event of a divorce they will properly have to split the money fifty-fifty.
Marriage does not imply "monopoly on each others sexual-ability" (unless you mean marriage in strictly christian terms, for example), this is up to the partners to decide.
"His wife" or "his partner" may not imply ownership, but "his woman" most certainly does. Aside from all the cultural connotations, using the common noun "woman" instead of associating a relationship between them depersonalizes her.
The usage of "his woman" would be routed from translation of Bible from Hebrew. In Hebrew, there is only one word for (Ish) man, and husband, or (Isha) woman, and wife.
English translations translated freely taking preference for poetic sound.
So as long as the bible is part of English speaking culture the usage of woman as wife will be common.
Something I find interesting about Persian culture. In Persian the word Zan means both wife and woman, but there is another more formal word Khanom. Which is always to be used when speaking or referring to someone older than you. I wouldn't be surprised if this is due to the etymology of the two word being from different languages.
> The usage of "his woman" would be routed from translation of Bible from Hebrew.
Mmm, except we're not talking about a transliteration of a Bible verse. This is colloquial usage of the term "his woman" in the English language with respect to American culture, which implies ownership. This has absolutely-- and I mean absolutely-- nothing to do with Hebrew.
> So as long as the bible is part of English speaking culture the usage of woman as wife will be common.
And has nothing to do with what we're talking about. The term implies ownership, and the Bible takes a very "man owns woman" stance. I assume your intent was not to prove my point?
The formal definition may mean 'possession', but English doesn't always work like that. Sometimes we say or write things that depend on the context/geography/community for the true meaning. It's not black and white.
Also, I think tersiag was stressing the person for which he wore a suit, not that he wore a suit for HIS woman (instead of someone else's woman).
Mark's wife (yes, i think this expression is much better) is still not "his woman". no woman belong to no man, and vice versa. Priscilla is her own person, just as Mark is.
Agreed. Though I think the problem is not the "his", it's the "woman". "His wife" would sound fine. "HIS WOMAN" sounds like a caveman or Redditor talking.
There are some references to what I'm talking about on the wikipeda page on Mazdak. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazdak