Talk:husband and wife

RFD discussion: March–May 2016
Hekaheka marked this for speedy deletion because "this is here 'for translation purposes only' but there's no translatable content". It does have translations, though, so I suppose it should be discussed here. Equinox ◑ 19:18, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
 * The facts: it's a fixed phrase (one does not say "wife and husband"), and is one word in many (if not all) East Asian languages. We have similar phrases in English such as knife and fork, flotsam and jetsam, kith and kin, pros and cons, first and foremost, etc. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 01:03, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Come to think of it, this phrase is definitely idiomatic, since it cannot refer to any old husband and wife, but a man and woman who are married to each other (as opposed to one husband and one wife who are not). IMO we should change the definition thus. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 01:09, 16 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete; not all fixed phrases are idioms. We're a dictionary, not a collection of collocations. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 01:12, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
 * When one says "they are husband and wife" it does not mean they other people's husband and wife - it means they are married to each other. This makes it idiomatic. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 01:45, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Well "father and son", "mother and son" (and so on) all have the same property. In fact "dog and owner" works as well. I'm not sure it's a linguistic argument at all so much as one of cognition. Renard Migrant (talk) 12:52, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
 * A video also pointed out that we say big red balloon not red big balloon. I'm uneasy about keeping purely based on word order. Also "coach and player" works for your example above too. Renard Migrant (talk) 12:54, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Having said that I think this might make a good translation only entry. It's marginal whether it's useful enough as we do obviously have husband and wife. Renard Migrant (talk) 12:54, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
 * In a matriarchal society maybe they do prefer the equivalent of wife and husband. Like many coordinated nouns (indeed, many collocatons of any kind), the nature of the relationship, if any, between them is driven by context. It is only substantial or unexpected differences in meaning in different contexts that we accommodate with additional definitions. DCDuring TALK 13:43, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Lots of things have a fixed order. You say up and down, father and son, salt and pepper, cake and ice cream, red, white and blue for instance, not *down and up or *son and father. No reason to keep husband and wife. 205.173.37.116 20:35, 6 April 2016 (UTC)


 * It does make me wonder whose responsibility it is to teach such orderings. It's not something to put in a grammar book, is it? Nor in a dictionary, possibly. But this feels like a "teachable thing" that ought to be documented somewhere for learners, rather than them having to acquire it by reading novels etc. Equinox ◑ 08:39, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
 * If we had ===Common collocations=== sections, it could go there; otherwise in example sentences I guess. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 09:48, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't rely too much on an example sentence, that just tells me as a FL speaker that "husband and wife" &c is a natural sequence, not that it's the natural sequence. Maybe the information might be put under Usage notes. Anyway, Keep at least as a translation target per Tooironic's first comment, as it's not only East Asian languages that use a single word for the concept. --Droigheann (talk) 01:08, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Kept. bd2412 T 16:22, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep; some languages like Japanese have its equivalents: and . The latter is a compound of  and  while it is an irregular reading for the kanji. Then we could leave the page as a translation target contrary to what Hekaheka considered. --Eryk Kij (talk) 18:14, 16 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Weak delete: we have already married couple for translations. The order [//books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=husband+and+wife%2Cwife+and+husband&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3 husband and wife] is a cultural preference, not a linguistic one. A frequency difference of that level is also found in [//books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=mom+and+dad%2Cdad+and+mom&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3 mom and dad]. — T AKASUGI Shinji (talk) 09:11, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep as a set phrase and as useful for translation. Note that this has higher frequency than "married couple": . From the point of view of a Czech speaker, this looks peculiar to English and hence common:idiomatic even if not CFI:idiomatic; in Czech, we usually say "manželé" and relatively rarely "manžel a manželka". The entry now contains translation only, which I do not like, but as long as it is there, what can anyone complain about? Digital storage space? --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:14, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

RFD discussion: June–August 2017
the translate target is already at married couple.--2001:DA8:201:3512:BCE6:D095:55F1:36DE 20:40, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
 * delete --Hekaheka (talk) 09:03, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. husband and wife and married couple are different, although related concepts, and have different translations. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 15:53, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep per Daniel Carrero; not all married couples are husband and wife. — Kleio (t · c) 15:59, 6 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Are you saying that e.g. a gay couple of two men could be called "husband and wife"? Equinox ◑ 16:21, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Nope, I'm saying the exact opposite. — Kleio (t · c) 19:05, 6 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep. Effectively a set phrase. Hits for "husband and wife" outnumber those for "wife and husband" by at least ten to one. bd2412 T 16:24, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Should we be enshrining in Wiktionary such microaggressive expressions of the unequal power relations in traditional heterosexual marriage? Don't we at least need a usage note shaming those who use or have used this? DCDuring (talk) 17:30, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
 * The fact that it is such an expression of unequal power lends to idiomacity, in the same way as man and wife, and Mr. and Mrs. bd2412 T 20:00, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
 * How do you feel about Talk:knife and fork (the generic sense, not the "symbol" sense)? Equinox ◑ 20:05, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Or for that matter, ladies and gentlemen? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:15, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
 * There is idiomacity inherent in setness of order. If it could be shown that "knife and fork" is orders of magnitude more common than "fork and knife", I would argue that this is strong evidence of a set phrase. bd2412 T 15:02, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Is that a kind of "setness" that we should care about? I think not. It is trivial and it is a little hard to believe that someone will go to Wiktionary to find whether the order of the nouns in the correlative phrase heard of read is correct. The US Declaration of Independence loses at least some of its meaning with even the slightest change in word order. What makes the order or words in correlatives so special? DCDuring (talk) 18:55, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I certainly wouldn't go to the trouble of deleting an entry that exhibited such setness. Of course, there's a sliding scale of setness based on how wrong the converse order would seem. If someone told you that they saw a "pony and dog show" would you feel that they were wrong? bd2412 T 19:07, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I deleted "newly" from the definition of "mand and wife". A male-female couple is declared "man and wife" until the death them aparts. --Hekaheka (talk) 06:56, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Lexicographically speaking, you can't choose which words you include in a dictionary based on whether or not you like their meaning. I'm sure there are many slurs on here and they should be because they are words and this is meant to be concise. That being said, I don't think there's anything microagressive about this term, the fact is when a man and woman get married the man is called the husband and the woman the wife, one member has to be mentioned before the other, this is the way, for whatever reason, it's worked out, but that doesn't make it offensive. The question should be is the usage of this phrase different enough from the mere conjunction of 'husband' and 'wife' to warrant it being considered a separate lexical item, not whether or not it upsets someone. 2WR1 (talk) 22:32, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Heheh, I am surprised by all the serious answers to this comment. It looks to me to be facetious. — Eru·tuon 23:56, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I was having the same feeling. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 01:07, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. DonnanZ (talk) 19:10, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. It's one word in many languages, such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Czech, Esperanto and Finnish. This makes it useful as a translation target. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 12:52, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. 2WR1 (talk) 22:32, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 01:07, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * RFD kept per above consensus. --Dan Polansky (talk) 16:48, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

RFD discussion: March–April 2018

 * Sum of parts, per discussion for gay couple. Nicole Sharp (talk) 13:26, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * This has been RFDed twice before. Arguments previously made for it: it's a set phrase (fixed order), it's one word in a lot of Asian languages (so it's a translation target/hub), it doesn't refer to a husband and (somebody else's) wife, but rather a married couple, but it is a more frequent term (see Ngrams) and also a semantically different term from "married couple". Arguments previously made against it: despite setness it is not an idiom; the ordering is cultural, not necessarily linguistic; translations can go in [[married couple]] (with a qualifier to note if they're restricted to an opposite-sex married couple). - -sche (discuss) 15:25, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Many of the translations look like they would fit better in [[married couple]] because they seem to literally mean that. The Czech one apparently means "husbands" but apparently idiomatically means either a man and wife (quite unexpected and hence a useful translation if accurate!) or two (gay) married husbands (which IMO would make the whole thing a great ed translation in [[married couple]]). - -sche (discuss) 15:29, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, you are right, although the literal translation of Czech is "husbands", it is much more often used in the sense "husband and wife" or "married couple". --Jan Kameníček (talk) 18:39, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * You can say the same thing about husband and husband, wife and wife, etc. though. Are the two husbands married to each other, or is it just two husbands not married to each other?  This is entirely from context, and they do not necessitate their own dictionary definitions.  Nicole Sharp (talk) 16:11, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Also note that you will then need to create additional entries such as husband and wife and wife for polygamist marriages. Clearly a sum of parts.  Nicole Sharp (talk) 16:15, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * No, most of the arguments don't extend to "husband and husband", which is about 2000 times rarer than "husband and wife" and used going back to the 1800s at nearly the same frequency as in the present day, which strongly suggests it's usually not a set term for a married same-sex couple but rather a chance instance of "[...husband] | [and husband (to, etc)...]" (indeed, looking at the books, they are strings like "relations of wife to husband and husband to wife are expounded..."). ("Wife and wife" is similar; see Ngrams.) It also remains to be demonstrated that the arguments about translations would apply to "husband and husband". However, I see no reason not to redirect husband and husband and wife and wife to gay couple if that entry is kept (and to redirect straight couple to this entry if it is kept). Your argument about husband and wife and wife is a clearly slippery slope fallacy; checking now, I don't even see enough hits to think that it would meet WT:ATTEST. - -sche (discuss) 16:25, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, these kinds of arguments based on usage are very politically sensitive. "Husband and husband," "wife and wife," etc. would of course be rare in jurisdictions where this is or was illegal (including the USA until recently).  A quick Google Search though clearly shows these terms in use in the same context as "husband and wife."  Even so, as a minority, there are less LGBT people than there are cisheterosexual people, so such terms will always be used less than their heteronormative equivalents.  But attempting to exclude LGBT terms because they are less popular is a discrimination that cannot be tolerated on Wiktionary.  Nicole Sharp (talk) 16:45, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Also note that wife and wife refers to a lesbian couple (not a gay couple) who are also a married couple. I say to delete all of these terms as sums of parts.  Nicole Sharp (talk) 16:56, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * With three RFDs in just on two years this must be breaking a record, I voted "keep" last time and I'm voting keep again. I think it needs protection against further RFDs if it survives yet again. As most users should know, I am quite liberal regarding SoP terms, and there's many I would like to create, but I'm already in trouble with electroshock weapon. However I do not see the need for other entries that Nicole mentioned, which strike me as arguments for the sake of it. I think an entry is quite sufficient. Funnily enough Oxford has an entry for husband-and-wife as an adjective, which we don't have. DonnanZ (talk) 18:06, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep. It is not a sum of parts, because there are many many people who are husbands or wives and they still do not make husband and wife relationship together. The translation argument is imo also important. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 18:34, 13 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Weak keep per the arguments in favour of it, above, including light idiomaticity, translation target-ness, and the lemming argument (Merriam-Webster has it). (And if gay couple passes, create a hard direct from straight couple to this entry, for the sake of anyone looking to add translations.) Incidentally, Cambridge has "as husband as wife" defined as "in the manner of..." an opposite sex couple, presumably to cover "lived|behaved as husband and wife" which however seems transparent. - -sche (discuss) 19:17, 13 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep for the third time in RFD; see RFD discussions at Talk:husband and wife, last closed in August 2017. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:19, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep, per the lemming principle and as a translation target. The discrimination argument doesn't apply to those. ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  11:46, 26 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Kept. - -sche (discuss) 19:34, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

man and wife

 * Presumably this should be discussed alongside husband and wife, above. I've added trans-see so we don't end up with translations at both. One could hard- or soft- redirect to the other (or they could both, along with [[straight couple]], redirect to [[married couple]], where any opposite-sex-specific translations can have s). - -sche (discuss) 15:42, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I didn't nominate this one due to the use of "man" to mean "husband," so I wouldn't view that as a sum of parts (since "man and wife" is not a man and a wife). I am not sure what terms are used for gay marriage ceremonies, e.g. if man and man (to mean husband and husband) should also be added.  Nicole Sharp (talk) 16:21, 13 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Weak keep (as nominator — i just nominated the term because I think it should probably be discussed alongside husband and wife), on the grounds that it's at least as idiomatic as "husband and wife" if not more so, and that entry has been repeatedly kept. - -sche (discuss) 19:12, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep for the same reason as "husband and wife", it is idomatic. I am a man, my female neighbour is married, so she is a wife. Despite this we are not "man and wife". --Jan Kameníček (talk) 08:54, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Abstain. We do not needs this as a translation hub: we have husband and wife for the purpose and per, husband and wife is more common. One could argue that "man and wife" is not a pair of two objects one of which happens to be male and another one happens to be a married female; I am not sure this is fully convincing for idiomaticity, though. does not find the traditional lemmings. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:27, 24 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Kept. - -sche (discuss) 19:34, 27 April 2018 (UTC)