spousehoodn.
/ˈspaʊshʊd/, /ˈspaʊzhʊd/, U.S. /ˈspaʊsˌ(h)ʊd/ Now archaic.
1. The state or fact of being a spouse, or of being married; matrimony, marriage; wedlock. Also in extended use with reference to animals.rare between the 16th and late 19th centuries.
ΘΚΠ
society > society and the community > kinship or relationship > marriage or wedlock > [noun]
bridelockOE
yokeOE
spousehooda1200
spousea1225
wedlock?c1225
wedlockhoodc1230
marriagec1300
spousal1340
matrimonya1382
espousala1393
muliera1400
spousagea1400
spouseheadc1400
weddedhooda1450
wedhooda1450
wedding1489
espousage1549
the bond(s of wedlock or matrimony1552
nuptial1566
bed-match1582
bob-tail1585
Hymen's banda1593
Hymen1608
married life1609
conjugality1645
marriage state1652
conjugacy1659
marriage life1662
establishment1684
shackledom1771
connubiality1836
connubialism1848
weddedness1891
bedlock1922
the tender trap1954
a1200 MS Trin. Cambr. in R. Morris Old Eng. Homilies (1873) 2nd Ser. 45 Ðo þre kinges bitocneð þre hodes of bilefulle men; on is meidhod, þat oðer spushod, þe þridde widewehod.
a1225 (?OE) MS Lamb. in R. Morris Old Eng. Homilies (1868) 1st Ser. 143 Þe sunfulle Men þet spushad brekeð.
c1325 (c1300) Chron. Robert of Gloucester (Calig.) 1507 Þat he þe emperoures doȝter in spoushod nome.
a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add. 27944) (1975) I. xii. ix. 619 Ȝif þe male aspieþ in any wise þat þe female haþ ibroke spousehode, sche schal namore duelle wiþ hym.
a1425 (?a1387) W. Langland Piers Plowman (Huntington HM 143) (1978) xiii. l. 10 Here spousehod to byknowe.
1491 Quattuor Serm. sig. Bi, in Mirk's Festialis (Caxton) In tyme of peryll of deth fader and moder may crysten their owne childerne wythout harmyng of their spowsehode.
1583 J. Foxe Actes & Monuments (ed. 4) II. 401/1 In these priests and in men of religion, that haue forsaken spoushod that thou ordeinedst in Paradise betwixt man and woman.
1867 A. M. Hemenway Rosa Immaculata xxxiii. 193 A sun that..made beautiful th' paths Of her spousehood.
1891 J. Winsor Columbus viii. 166 Such an intimacy as spousehood only can sanction.
1922 O. R. Cohen Assorted Chocolates 62 Already the back lash of her spousehood had elevated her to a social plane which she had hitherto regarded enviously and hopelessly.
1963 N. Dennis in J. Mogey Family & Marriage 81 Spousehood as compared with parenthood takes a larger portion of the life span of the individual than in the past.
1996 Globe & Mail (Toronto) (Nexis) 19 Jan. The paragon of political spousehood may have been Dennis Thatcher.
2012 R. P. Watson Affairs of State iv. 96 Martha's education was..designed to both assist the family and prepare her for spousehood and motherhood.
2. figurative. The position or status of the Church, or a person (esp. a member of a female religious order) or soul, regarded as being symbolically married to God or Christ; the union or bond so characterized. Now rare.
ΚΠ
c1300 St. Matthew (Laud) l. 88 in C. Horstmann Early S.-Eng. Legendary (1887) 80 (MED) Ich hire wolle rede Þat heo heolde hire spoushod.
1340 Ayenbite (1866) 222 (MED) Hit is on of þe sacremens of holy cherche, and betokneþ þe spoushod þet is be-tuene holy cherche and Iesu crist and betuene god and þe zaule.
1873 S. S. Hennell Present Relig. II. i. ix. 586 The imagined need in the reigning image of the Church's Spousehood, of proving ‘Husband’ and ‘Wife’ in the case really made ‘of one Flesh’, according to the Hebrew notion of the fact of Sex.
1997 E. Ross Grief of God iv. 108 She [sc. Katherine of Alexandria] dies in defense of her spousehood with the Divine One.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2016; most recently modified version published online June 2022).
<
n.a1200