Definition of Husband
(noun) A male partner in a marriage.
Example of Husband
- American English – /hUHz-buhnd/
- British English – /hUHz-buhnd/
International Phonetic Alphabet
- American English – /ˈhəzb(ə)n(d)/
- British English – /ˈhʌzb(ə)nd/
- Plural: husbands
- “Families of orientation, procreation, and cohabitation provide us with some of the most important roles we will assume in life. The nuclear family roles (such as parent, child, husband, wife, and sibling) combine with extended family roles (such as grandparent, aunt, uncle, cousin, and in-law) to form the kinship system” (Strong, Devault, and Cohen 2011:19).
- “The members of the conjugal family in our urban society normally share a common basis of economic support in the form of money income, but this income is not derived from the co-operative efforts of the family as a unit – its principal source lies in the remuneration of occupational role performed by individual members of the family. Status in an occupational role is generally, however, specifically segregated from kinship status – a person holds a ‘job‘ as an individual, not by virtue of his status in a family. Among the occupational statuses of members of a family, if there is more than one, much the most important is that of the husband and father, not only because it is usually the primary source of family income, but also because it is the most important single basis of the status of the family in the community at large. To be the main ‘breadwinner’ of his family is a primary role of the normal adult man in our society. The corollary of this role is his far smaller participation than that of his wife in the internal affairs of the household. Consequently, ‘housekeeping’ and the care of children is still the primary functional content of the adult feminine role in the middle-classes, in the great majority of cases not one which in status or remuneration competes closely with those held by men of her own class. Hence there is a typically asymmetrical relation of the marriage pair to the occupational structure. This asymmetrical relation apparently both has exceedingly important positive functional significance and is at the same time an important source of strain in relation to the patterning of sex roles” (Parsons 1943:32–33).
- Family and Kinship Resources – Books, Journals, and Helpful Links
- Word origin of “husband” – Online Etymology Dictionary: etymonline.com
Strong, Bryan, Christine DeVault, and Theodore F. Cohen. 2011. The Marriage and Family Experience: Intimate Relationships in a Changing Society. 11th ed. Boston: Cengage Learning.
Parsons, Talcott. 1943. “The Kinship System of the Contemporary United States.” American Anthropologist 45(1):22–38. doi:10.1525/aa.1943.45.1.02a00030.
ASA – American Sociological Association (5th edition)
Bell, Kenton, ed. 2014. “husband.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Retrieved May 31, 2020 (http://sociologydictionary.org/husband/).
APA – American Psychological Association (6th edition)
husband. (2014). In K. Bell (Ed.), Open education sociology dictionary. Retrieved from http://sociologydictionary.org/husband/
Chicago/Turabian: Author-Date – Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition)
Bell, Kenton, ed. 2014. “husband.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Accessed May 31, 2020. http://sociologydictionary.org/husband/.
MLA – Modern Language Association (7th edition)
“husband.” Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Ed. Kenton Bell. 2014. Web. 31 May. 2020. <http://sociologydictionary.org/husband/>.