Noun

Singular husband

Plural husbands

husband (plural husbands)

1. A man in a marriage or marital relationship.
2. Large cushion with arms meant to support a person in the sitting position.

   While reading her book, Sally leaned back against her husband, wishing it were the human kind.

Synonyms

• See also Wikisaurus:husband

Antonyms

• wife

Hypernyms

• partner (may or may not be married)
• spouse (may also apply to wife)

Derived terms

• house husband
• hubby
• husbandage
• husbandly
• husbandman
• husbandry
• husbandless

A husband is a male spouse, or participant in a marriage.

Related terms

A husband has been married to another person (possibly multiple persons) in a wedding ceremony, during which he was known as the groom. His partner, if female, was known during the wedding as his bride, and in marriage she is called his wife.

Although “husband” seems to be a close term to groom, the latter is a male participant in a wedding ceremony, while a husband is a married man after the wedding, during his marriage. Upon marriage, he or his family may have received a dowry, or have had to pay a bride price, or both were exchanged.

The dowry not only supported the establishment of a household, but also served as a condition that if the husband committed grave offences upon his wife, the dowry had to be returned to the wife or her family; for the time of the marriage, they were made inalienable by the husband. When the husband dies, he might leave his wife (or wives), then widow (or widows), a dower (often a third or a half of his estate) to support her as dowager.

Husband further refers to the institutionalized form in relation to the spouse and offspring, unlike father, a term that puts a man into the context of his children. Also compare the similar husbandry, which in the 14th century referred to the care of the household, but today means the “control or judicious use of resources”, conservation, and in agriculture, the cultivation of plants and animals, and the science about its profession.

Western culture

A husband is a male spouse, or participant in a marriage.

Unsourced

• Married men make the best husbands.
  • James Huneker

• Husbands love your wives and, and be not bitter against them.
  • Colossian

• God give me a rich husband, though he be an ass.
  • Thomas Fuller, "Gromologia"

See also

• Wives
• Marriage

External links