word choice - How do married gay couples address each other?


I know that non-married lovers address each other by saying “This is my girlfriend/boyfriend.” I know that married couples address each other by calling “my wife/husband”.


I also know that gay lovers who are not married (yet?) address each other by saying "my boyfriend" (for gays) and "my girlfriend" (for lesbians).


But if they are married, how do they address each other?


And how do we describe them? I mean if they are gays, are they “husband and husband” or “husband and wife” (one of them acts like the wife)? And if they are lesbians, are they “wife and wife” or “husband and wife” (one of them acts as the husband)?


I know they can be referred to as a gay couple or gay lovers from here, but I couldn't find the answer to address each of the two.



Answer



The word wife means "woman". In the context of a marriage, then whether same-sex or different-sex* it means the woman one is married to, and always has done.


The word husband meant the man who is the master of a household, but this has moved to having less hierarchical implications a long time ago; not just with the rise of the Women's Movement in the last century, though that obviously had massively increased the changes in how we consider the term.† As such, it means the man one is married to.


So, assuming either a cissexual partner, or a partner that identifies as either of the binary of man or woman, then you call them a wife if they are a woman and a husband if they are a man.


Non-binary identifications vary widely, and so can only really be considered on a case-by-case basis. However, spouse covers same-sex, and different-sex marriages of cis, binary trans and non-binary trans people of all sexes, and so can be used as a catch-all.


*Every time you call same-sex marriage "gay marriage" a bisexual loses their wings.


†Calling the woman in a man-woman relationship "his woman" and the man "her master of the household" may seem a bit sexist. In fact it was very sexist indeed. This was a thousand years ago, after all.


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