The older usages of it weren’t as bad, supposedly (and I don’t have the access to link a source that’s authoritative without paying) and were generally akin to calling the wife the queen of the house, but also implying that she was more of a dowager queen, and one without power.
But it eventually just fell into the usual trope of men either dismissing their own feelings by joking about their wife, or expressing the idea that the wife is something you put up with rather than respect and love.
Now, that first part is important! Using terms that seem derogatory, but are really there to cover up genuine emotion that is untoward for a “real” man has been a thing for a very long time now, so you can’t just assume that any given man using terms like “old lady” or “the old ball-and-chain” are being misogynistic. It’s becoming less common for men to cloak their affection behind dismissive or derogatory terms, but it is still there.
It’s like when you’re petting your dog and you’re babbling about them being a monster or beast. You love the dog, but you’re using inverted meaning to express it. It’s just that the freedom to babble to your dog about how wonderful they are became more acceptable sooner. Which is a bit of an indictment of the systemic misogyny we live in.
Anyway, if you compare that to the supposed origins of “old man” to refer to a father in specific (rather than the use to mean a husband/boyfriend which is one use of the phrase), it came from naval usage like so many other neat phrases.
Is was, and still is, a term used for a Captain or other commanding officer. When it got applied to dads, it was from a similar way of thinking, wherein the father is in command of the household, but it was also an honorific of sorts.
The reasons for it being used that way in the English and American navies is a whole essay by itself, but that essays are already out there online, so I’m not making this longer by going into it lol.
Anyway, the tl;dr that’s horribly misleading is: a combination of ageism, patriarchal thinking, and a tinge of misogyny here and there.
Damn this was super informative and really well written.
Thank you :)
Because mom is and will always just be mom
Mother is the word for god on the lips and hearts of little children. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray
“mama” is a cross-cultural word for mother. It’s the easiest word for a baby to pronounce.
Probably the other way round when you think about it… Mums/mamas were named this way because it’s the first articulate thing babies say all over the world
“M” is the most common consonant sound across the world’s languages precisely because of how easy it is to pronounce and recognize. All major languages have it or some kind of close enough equivalent
TIL that quote didn’t originate from The Crow. Gods I feel dumb.
Quick impression for ya; caw, caw, bang fuck I’m dead!
Dont feel bad, I spent most of my life thinking it was from The Crow as well.
And Darwin
But not all moms/mums are created equal.
I think they’re terms men often apply to whichever figure in the household represents the greatest constraint on their actions (or the person to whom they most defer).
If they’re married, that’s their spouse, but if they’re living with their parents in a traditional male-dominated household, it’s their father.
Funny, I’ve always thought of them as terms of honour. At least that’s why I called my father old man. He called his captain that back when he was a sailor. (second edit: fun fact, his last captain was my grandpa on mom’s side. Guess he liked the captain’s daughter.)
edit: I guess it’s a way to acknowledge seniority.
Because Mama ain’t no lady.
Because it became misused enough from the actual meaning of “mother” that it stuck, and the old “boomer” humor attitude of “haha I hate my spouse but I’m stuck with them” helped it stick.
If men had mistresses, the “old lady” was their wife, but their concubines were young ones
Because, “mom” can never be replaced.
Because subconsciously they want to fuck their mom of course.
Because subconsciously they want to fuck their mom of course.
That’s a very Oedipus Rex statement.
but their “old lady” is their wife?
No married man calls his wife old, not if he ever wants to have sex again with her.
That, and leaving the toilet seat up.
Edit: And apparently once again I’ve tapped into an unexpected conflict point in our society. 😋
“old lady” absolutely is slang for wife. Also “ball and chain” which… yeah…
“old lady” absolutely is slang for wife.
I know it exists, but I’ve never used it.
Also, I was just being more humorous, than literal, hence the toilet seat comment.
Being serious for a moment, IMO, it sends one hell of a negative signal to your significant other, to your dissatisfaction of them, which I’ve never felt for my own wife.
Edit: …
And for those of you who may disagree with me, ask yourself this. Is your wife actually okay with you using that slang, or do they just act like they’re okay, but inside it bothers them? Do they see it as a term of endearment, or as a reminder of reality?
Reminding your wife that she’s old, even playfully, may not be something she wants to hear.
And generally speaking, women seem to care more about aging than men do. That’s why when someone asks you how old your wife is, when she is in earshot, you always say 18, or at the very least 21! 😜
Ah, I see
That, and leaving the toilet seat up
Toilet seat belongs down - and the lid with it! It’s not only logical, but also just.
Toilet seat belongs down - and the lid with it! It’s not only logical, but also just.
The thing is, at least in our household, the lid has to stay up.
I actually thought as you do, as that would be a perfect compromise, both parties would have to work to use the toilet.
But from what I’m told, is the late night half asleep moments where you forget to put the seat down, and you fall down into the toilet, that is being prevented by making sure the seats always down and the lid is always up.
It’s a low hanging fruit way of maritial bliss, so I go with it.
Lid down so the flush spray is mostly contained is enough reason, no?
Lid down so the flush spray is mostly contained is enough reason, no?
We never have that problem in our household. 🤷
We have a toilet that flushes in the front to the back in a jet, there’s never any splash.
Where the falling in problem tends to reoccur, if not prevented.
Flushing a toilet, yes, as far as I’m aware, any toilet, regardless of the design, creates an aerosolized mist containing small particles of fecal matter. So, every time you flush a toilet with the lid open, you are covering your bathroom and everything in it in a microscopic layer of shit… enjoy brushing your teeth later.
enjoy brushing your teeth later.
Actually our bathroom sink is outside of the bathroom toilet, with a door seperating them. 🤷
It’s less about the splash and more about the microscopic sprays of faecal bacteria. You don’t want that E. Coli on your toothbrush.
You don’t want that E. Coli on your toothbrush.
Actually our bathroom sink is outside of the bathroom toilet, with a door seperating them. 🤷
That makes no sense to me tbh. If you are trained to keep the lid down, you are alerted immediately that something is off if the seat is up - you clearly see into the toilet and see that someone forgot to put it down.
If you are trained to only have the seat down and lid up, then the change between seat up and down is not significant enough to notice and stop muscle memory to sit and fall in.
Maybe I’m not understanding you but lid down is a foolproof way to not fall in from my perspective. My wife converted to the lid down way and doesn’t complain
You consider lid down to be foolproof, but I’d say seat down is also foolproof if your eyes aren’t absolutely horrible.
Maybe I’m not understanding you but lid down is a foolproof way to not fall in from my perspective.
My wife always forgets when she gets up in the middle of the night, and falls in, or sits on the lid and has to get up and put the lit up and seat down herself.
So she asks me to always make sure to put the seat down for her, something that I’m happy to do, as a happy wife is a happy life.
Seat is down if thenlid is down. But whatever works for you and your wife!
Seat is down if thenlid is down.
Our lid is seperate from the seat. One can be
donedown while the other one is still up.So you can have the lid down while seat is up? Then what you said before makes much more sense. Though not sure what purpose this feature brings. Or how that would even lool like, never seen anything like that.
What if your wife already won’t have sex with you? Asking for a friend…
What if your wife already won’t have sex with you? Asking for a friend…
I got nothin’.
I’ve had this happen to me. I suspect it’s one sad MRA type with a pile of accounts bringing the downvotes. He can sense when I post anything remotely respectful of women because his pee pee hurts. 😆
I’ve had this happen to me. I suspect it’s one sad MRA type with a pile of accounts bringing the downvotes.
If true, I’d feel really sad for that person, in a go outside and touch grass sort of way.
Honestly, at this point I expect the large amount of downvotes for anything I post. I’ve had that happen to a post where I just said “Thanks” and nothing else. Its sad, and I’d wish the Lemmy admins would catch that sort of thing more often (understanding that they are volunteers, but still), as it doesn’t make my experience here on Lemmy any better than when I was on Reddit.
