I Never Knew There Was a Word for It - Adam Jacot De Boinod [136]
gluepot (b.1811) a parson (from joining men and women together in matrimony)
IN THE PAPERS
In the UK, people of a certain class have traditionally advertised marriage, just as they do births and deaths, with an announcement in their newspaper of choice. This trio defining a person’s life is colloquially known as hatched, matched and dispatched (with some believing that these really are the only times your name should appear in the papers). In Australia, similar announcements are known as yells, bells and knells. But though established through long custom, marriage has come in many varied and interesting forms …
paranymph (1660) the best man or bridesmaid at a wedding
levirate (1725) the custom requiring a man to marry his brother’s widow
punalua (1889) a group marriage in which wives’ sisters and husbands’ brothers were considered spouses
adelphogamy (1926) a form of marriage in which brothers share a wife or wives
jockum-gagger (1797) a man living on the prostitution of his wife
bitch’s blind (US slang) a wife who acts as a cover for a homosexual male
opsigamy (1824) marrying late in life
VIRAGO
Maritality (1812) is a charming word, meaning ‘the excessive affection a wife feels for her husband’, while levament (1623) describes one of the best aspects of a good marriage, ‘the comfort a man has from his wife’. But in general the words and phrases our language has thrown up speak of more demanding realities, with wives all too often in the frame:
loudspeaker (underworld slang 1933) a wife
alarm clock (US slang 1920s) a nagging woman
tenant at will (late 18C) one whose wife arrives at the alehouse to make him come home
ten commandments (mid 15C) the ten fingers and thumbs especially of a wife
curtain-lecture (b.1811) a reproof given by a wife to her husband in bed
cainsham smoke (1694) the tears of a man who is beaten by his wife (deriving from a lost story relating to Keynsham, near Bristol)
AFTERPLAY
Love and marriage, the song goes, go together ‘like horse and carriage’. So why doesn’t fidelity always fit so easily into the equation?
wittol (15C) a man who is aware of his wife’s unfaithfulness but doesn’t mind or acquiesces
court of assistants (late 18C) the young men with whom young wives, unhappy in their marriages to older men, are likely to seek solace
to pick a needle without an eye (West Indian) of a young woman, to give oneself in marriage to a man whom one knows will be of no use as a sexual partner
gandermooner (1617) a husband who strays each month, during the time of the month when his wife is ‘unavailable’
stumble at the truckle-bed (mid 17C) to ‘mistake’ the maid’s bed for one’s wife’s
UP THE DUFF
The desire to expand the family is all too natural; though the actual circumstances of conception may vary considerably:
beer babies (Sussex) babies sired when the man was drunk
Band-Aid baby (UK slang) a child conceived to strengthen a faltering relationship
basting (UK slang 2007) being with a gay male friend who offers to give the baby a woman longs for
sooterkin (1658) an imaginary kind of birth attributed to Dutch women from sitting over their stoves
THE STORK DESCENDS
In parts of America they say you have swallowed a watermelon seed when you become pregnant. In Britain, children were once told that the new baby boy in the family had been found under the gooseberry bush, while the girl was found in the parsley bed:
omphalomancy (1652) divination by counting the knots in the umbilical cord of her first born to predict the number of children a mother will have
nom de womb (US slang 2005) a name used by an expectant parent to refer to their unborn child
infanticipate (US 1934) to be expecting a child
quob (b.1828) to move as the embryo does in the womb; as the heart does when throbbing
pigeon pair (Wiltshire dialect) a boy and a girl (when a mother has only two children)
PRIVATE VIEWS
As soon as Baby appears, of course, there is much excitement. Relatives and friends crowd round to check out the new arrival,