The word "wife" comes from Hanshan's Poem in the Tang Dynasty: "The master has a wife and has been rich for three or five years; I used to be poor, but now I laugh at myself for having no money. " At that time, "wife" only referred to elderly women. In the Northern Song Dynasty, Xu's grandfather once wrote a poem: "The wife is impatient and often advises each other, which makes Yan only have three days.

My ears have been listening to you. I like that both families are flat and kind. "Since then," wife "began to formally refer to his wife, and it has been used since then.

Extended data:

The word "wife" is a kind of respect for other people's wives. According to textual research, in the Han Dynasty, "wife" was a respectful name for the wife of the older generation. When the Han Dynasty mourned the emperor, the emperor addressed his grandmother Fu Shi as the wife of the emperor and later as the queen of the emperor.

So in the Han Dynasty, the title of "wife" gradually became popular among aristocratic women. In the Ming Dynasty, there were strict restrictions on addressing "wife". The Ming Dynasty wrote in Hu Yinglin's Poem A and B: "The wife of any scholar-bureaucrat should be called a wife at the age of 30", which means that only the wife with an official position above Zhong Cheng can be called a wife.

People in the Qing Dynasty like to call housewives or elderly and respected old women "wives". For example, in the third episode of A Dream of Red Mansions, it was written that a maid came up and said with a smile, "Madam said, please ask Miss Lin to sit over there", but it can be seen that at that time, most of the maids and servants were calling the hostess; By the Beiyang government and the Republic of China, the title of wife was quite rampant, from warlord generals to small officials with sesame seeds and mung beans, their families could all be called wives.

For example, the wives of officials, managers, principals and professors can be seen everywhere. However, we can also see that there are still some restrictions. At least people with knowledge or a certain social status will use the word "wife", and ordinary poor families will not call their wives "wives";

Nowadays, after the reform and opening up, with the return of Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, overseas Chinese and overseas Chinese, the term "wife" has become popular again, and it has become a respectful name for married women among friends, which is more civilian.

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