I was once married to a Japanese woman. Before we got married, I had to figure out what to call her.
I mean, I knew my wife’s name. (I may be a man, but I’m not a total idiot.) The question was: what do I call her when I’m talking to others?
Historical assumptions
The various levels of politeness in the Japanese language mean that how you refer to someone in conversation is determined by two principal factors: your relationship to the subject you’re speaking about, and your relationship to the person you’re speaking to. For spouses, this means you use different words depending on whether you’re talking about someone else’s spouse versus your own.
The problem for modern Japan is that most of the terms used for spouses – in either direction – are laden with vestiges of sexist assumptions.
Take, for example, some common terms for referring to one’s husband or wife.
For husband, there’s 主人 (shujin). (The term ご主人 is used to refer to someone else’s husband.) Taken literally, shujin means “primary person,” and implies that a husband is the family’s primary breadwinner – while subtly reinforcing that a woman’s “place” is in the home.
