# female head of the household



## Zsuzsu

Hi all,

Is there a shorter word/expression for "the female head of the household"? I found housewife (but it also includes a meaning that she doesn't work but her husband earns money), woman of the house, and homemaker - which of these would you choose to refer to the woman (usually the wife), who manages the household (but it is not important whether she earns money or not)?

Thanks!


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## Franzi

None of those have that meaning. 'Homemaker' and 'housewife' mean a woman who is supported by her husband. I don't really use "woman of the house". I've only heard this type of expression used in contexts like someone telling a little kid they're the "man/woman of the house now". It does mean that they're in charge, but it's not a neutral description of someone who runs a household.

Can you give more context?


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## Trisia

In Roman times, a "matron" would probably have matched your description. Sadly I don't see that meaning today in any of the dictionaries I checked.


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## Zsuzsu

Thanks Franzi! Do you know of another word, then, which has the intended meaning?


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## Franzi

Zsuzsu said:


> Thanks Franzi! Do you know of another word, then, which has the intended meaning?


 
I'm not sure what the intended meaning _is. _To me, the only important distinctions are who earns money and who stays home. What kind of household are we talking about and what kind of "managing" is this hypothetical woman doing?

Or, put another way: How are you defining "head of the household" in the first place?


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## Zsuzsu

To tell the truth, the woman I am writing about does not earn money, but it is not important. Actually, it is not one particular woman. I am writing about Mongolian women, who live in yurts and take care of the household (or for example in the country in Hungary). In both Mongolian and Hungarian there is a word that implies that the woman is a "head" in a way, she cooks and takes care of the livestock. Is there anything like that in English? Or what is the expression that is the closest to what I described?


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## Zsuzsu

Trisia!

A "matron" is similar to that, but unfortunately I am writing about Mongols. Thanks anyway!


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## Nunty

Would _matriarch_ work for you or is it over the top?


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## Franzi

Nun-Translator said:


> Would _matriarch_ work for you or is it over the top?


 
To me, 'matriarch' has connotations of age, being in charge of female relatives, living in an extended family group, etc.


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## Franzi

Zsuzsu said:


> To tell the truth, the woman I am writing about does not earn money, but it is not important. Actually, it is not one particular woman. I am writing about Mongolian women, who live in yurts and take care of the household (or for example in the country in Hungary). In both Mongolian and Hungarian there is a word that implies that the woman is a "head" in a way, she cooks and takes care of the livestock. Is there anything like that in English? Or what is the expression that is the closest to what I described?


 
Usually, when I see someone described as being the "head" of a household, this means that they have the power and make the decisions, not that they do all the work. Women do the cooking in pretty much every society, so that's unremarkable and doesn't need a special word. Is there something special about the fact that they take care of the livestock?

What do the men do? Are you talking about a society in which the men are nomadic and the women manage the camp because the men aren't there? Is this a society in which women make the political decisions? How do husbands interact with their wives when both are in the same place?

I can't think of a simple noun to describe what I think you're probably talking about.  Instead, I would rephrase and say "women run/manage/take care of the household while men...".


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## Lis48

Mistress of the house?


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## Franzi

Lis48 said:


> Mistress of the house?


 
To me, "mistress of the house" implies a traditional female gender role.  If the original poster is trying to describe a non-traditional role (or, rather, a traditional role in some other society that's quite different from the traditional role readers are familiar with) that might not be the best term.


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## Lis48

Actually we do have a very old word for the female head of a household that was used in England in the Middle Ages. But I certainly *don´t* recommend its use today as it´s come to mean something very different! The word is _hussy._


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## Nunty

Zsuzsu, can you please tell us more fully what this woman does? Are there other women in the household as well? Is it a single family, extended family, clan? Maybe more information will help us.


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## Zsuzsu

Wow, so many terms... Let's see them one by one:

Matriarch: for me, too, it is somebody old. The term I am looking for can refer to both young and aged. Furthermore, the word "matriarch" might also imply that she is the ruler in the family.

Mistress: it sounds better for me, although the definition I found for it was almost the same as I gave for "matriarch"...

The woman I speak about has a certain power and can make decisions, still it is her husband who is the "main head" of the household. I would like to use this term in a text in which I am writing about Mongols: there they live in the country in yurts and make a living of their livestock. It is usually women who do all the housework, and most of the times men do nothing. This is the situation now in Mongolia, but even in households where men help women, I would use this term. Moreover, I would refer to a Hungarian woman who lives in the countryside and is in charge with the household (and usually doesn't have a job) and whose family has livestock and who is the oldest woman in the household (she might as well be 20 if there is no older woman) by this term...

Now, what do you think?

P.S. I think this might be a traditional female role!


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## Zsuzsu

Lis48 said:


> Actually we do have a very old word for the female head of a household that was used in England in the Middle Ages. But I certainly *don´t* recommend its use today as it´s come to mean something very different! The word is _hussy._


 
Thanks, Lis, I will definitely not use this word!


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## Nunty

Reading the description in post #15, the first expression that came to mind is "farm wife". A farm wife takes care of the house, the cooking, the children, and also the family's vegetable garden, chickens or cows if there are any, and so on. But you are writing about nomads, I believe, so that won't work.

Is there a reason you don't want to use housewife besides the fact it has been devalued as a term in recent years?


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## Zsuzsu

Nun-Translator said:


> Is there a reason you don't want to use housewife besides the fact it has been devalued as a term in recent years?


 
You are right, for me a housewife is a (modern) woman in a city. But if you - as natives - say that it can also be used for somebody I descibed, I will happily accept it!


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## Nunty

I just had another idea: What about "woman of the house", parallel to and derived from "man of the house"? I like it.


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## Franzi

Nun-Translator said:


> Is there a reason you don't want to use housewife besides the fact it has been devalued as a term in recent years?


 
Does 'housewife' really make sense if everyone works "at home" in some fashion?  I usually see that used for women who stay home in industrialized societies, not for farmers or herders or other people who don't have a strong distinction between the home and the workplace.


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## Zsuzsu

Nun-Translator,
"woman of the house" has come up - only Franzi said that it is usually used in a specific way. What do you think?

Franzi! Yes, you see my point! No workplace, only home...


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## Franzi

Nun-Translator said:


> I just had another idea: What about "woman of the house", parallel to and derived from "man of the house"? I like it.


 
That sounds completely wrong to me.  As I said above, I only see "man/woman of the house" used in a few specific contexts: If a parent or other similar person dies, people often say to the oldest same-sex kid "Well, you're the man/woman of the house now".  The kid may also say this about themselves.  This means that they're going to have to take the place of the dead parent and either take care of the surviving parent or take care of their younger siblings.  It implies a totally traditional role.

A man asserting his authority might also say "I'm the man of the house!" (meaning that he has the decisionmaking power), but I have never, ever heard a woman say "I'm the woman of the house!" in this context.


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## Franzi

Zsuzsu, I'm still having trouble figuring out what kind of word you want. Let's come at this another way:

What is different/surprising/weird about the role of women in Mongolian society? I would normally automatically assume that women do all of the housework, take care of the children, and defer to the men in a given society unless I had reason to think otherwise. I would also assume that farmers and herders have hard lives and that the women have to help take care of the animals.

Why do you need a special term at all? Is there a particular sentence you're working on that requires a noun for this? If there is no specific reason for such a term, I would probably write something like:

"Mongolian gender roles are traditional, though the difficulty of the nomadic lifestyle means that Mongolian women are unusually self-reliant/empowered/strong/whatever [relative to women in other traditional societies]."

or

"Mongolian women take care of the home and livestock while the men take care of decisionmaking/are the religious leaders/sit around on their butts smoking/whatever"


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## johndot

No-one’s mentioned *housekeeper*: would that fit? (Though you might have to define some of her rôles for the benefit of readers who are unfamiliar with the Mongolian lifestyle.)


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## Franzi

johndot said:


> No-one’s mentioned *housekeeper*: would that fit? (Though you might have to define some of her rôles for the benefit of readers who are unfamiliar with the Mongolian lifestyle.)


 
To me, 'housekeeper' implies that the woman is in charge of a large house (a building, not a yurt) and that she is an employee rather than a relative of the person who owns the house.

Sorry to be such a wet blanket, but I really think most of these terms will just cause confusion in this context.


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## Zsuzsu

Franzi,

It seems that what I wrote was confusing - sorry about this! I do not write about roles in Mongolian society, I just want to put something in the following sentences:

"The female head of the household (_gerīn ejegtei_) sits by the ‘kitchen’ (_gal togō_) of the yurt on the heel of her left leg, which is folded backwards, with her right leg bent at the knee."


"The spoon has been destorted because the female head of the household has let the remains of milk settle on it for years."

I would like to find a word that is not wierd in a Mongolian context. However, in what I write I will not describe the context because I hope my readers will be familiar with it.


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## GreenWhiteBlue

Would it be really so untoward to coin the word "yurtwife"?


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## Zsuzsu

GreenWhiteBlue, I like that! However, can you imagine this expression in a strictly academic context?


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## Franzi

Zsuzsu said:


> "The female head of the household (_gerīn ejegtei_) sits by the ‘kitchen’ (_gal togō_) of the yurt on the heel of her left leg, which is folded backwards, with her right leg bent at the knee."
> 
> "The spoon has been destorted because the female head of the household has let the remains of milk settle on it for years."


 
Are all adult, married women in this society _gerīn ejegtei? _If so, I would use "the woman", "the Mongolian woman", or "the wife" in this type of context. (Which one I'd choose would depend on the surrounding sentences.)

Alternatively, if your audience is familiar with Mongolian terms, you could just use '_gerīn ejegtei_' untranslated.


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## GreenWhiteBlue

Zsuzsu said:


> GreenWhiteBlue, I like that! However, can you imagine this expression in a strictly academic context?


 
Actually, I could.  If I were writing the paper, I  introduce "yurtwife" as the English word that would be used, provide the Mongolian term, and maybe mention what the position entailed:

The yurtwife (that is, the _gerīn ejegtei:_ the woman who is in charge of the domestic management of the yurt) sits by the ‘kitchen’ (_gal togō_) of the yurt ...


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## Zsuzsu

Yes, they are all adult and married.
Do "the woman" and "the Mongolian woman" include the meaning of being the "female head"? "Wife"... The first sentence is from a conext where I write about seating arrangements in a yurt - here I mention the "head of the household" (tha man), "the female head", other relatives and guests. The second sentence is simply not to a photo. But I would use the same Hungarian words in both sentences.

P.S. I need an English version for the Mongolian term.


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## Franzi

Zsuzsu said:


> Yes, they are all adult and married.
> Do "the woman" and "the Mongolian woman" include the meaning of being the "female head"? "Wife"... The first sentence is from a conext where I write about seating arrangements in a yurt - here I mention the "head of the household" (tha man), "the female head", other relatives and guests. The second sentence is simply not to a photo. But I would use the same Hungarian words in both sentences.
> 
> P.S. I need an English version for the Mongolian term.


 
Who are the other relatives?  (And why do you need an English version?  Is this for a translation exercise for a class, or is it a professional translation intended for an audience of English-speaking academics?)

I might just go for "male head of the household" and "female head of the household", but it would depend on what other relatives are included in one household.


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## Aardvark01

In colonial India powerful white women were respectfully called *memsahib*.
 The term is still widely understood but is idiomatic of deferential behaviour, the age of British Empire and Anglo-Indian culture/cuisine.


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## Cagey

I agree with GWB's idea in post #20. In an academic paper, you are allowed to introduce a word as jargon, and you would avoid using a word that already has other unwanted associations for your listener.  It can have whatever meaning you establish for it.


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## beccamutt

Hi ZZ,

Is there a particular reason that the gender has to be included in some form and the generic "head of household" cannot work? I think there is no set term in English because it is the actions/role of the person rather than the gender that defines the term...

If you simply want to identify the male head of household and female head of household, I would use _patriarch_ and _matriarch_.  Both indicate that they are in positions of authority (i.e. decision making) in the household.


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## Franzi

Zsuzsu said:


> Yes, they are all adult and married.


 
By the way, that's not quite the same as what I asked. What I wanted to know is if the term covered all women who were adult and married, not if all women covered by the term were both of those things. In other words, are there adult, married women who you can't use the term for?

If one household consists of one married couple plus their children and maybe an elderly relative, it would not be unusual to see "husband" and "wife" used for "male head of the household" and "female head of the household". If there are multiple wives (or husbands), multiple married couples, or a lot of other adult relatives around, then using specific terminology ("female head of the household", "principal wife", "matriarch") makes sense. 

Edited to add: It is very common in academic writing to see something like what GWB wrote or like what he wrote but minus the coined term: "The _gerīn ejegtei _(the woman in charge of domestic management of the yurt) is..." You would use the term in italics throughout the rest of the paper but not define it again.  Are you insisting on an English-language term because someone told you you had to have one or because you're assuming that's standard practice in academic writing?


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## Lis48

The person with the highest rank in a Roman family was called the _Pater Familia_, a position always held by a man. More recently, I have seen newspaper articles talking about the new _Mater Familias (_or_ materfamilias)_ referring to the way the women often are heads of the family now not the men.


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## beccamutt

I just saw GWB's "yurtwife" suggestion and agree fully -- if introduced as the English term for the Mongolian word you're trying to translate with a description of what it is, I think it could work quite smoothly in an academic setting.


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## Zsuzsu

Franzi, I am translating something (on request), which is written in Hungarian. The paper is half academic, half popular (so although most of the readers will be familiar with Mongolia, not all of them speak the language). 

And this is my problem with "yurtwife", Cagey: although I am allowed to include minor changes in the text, this would be a very strong change in the author's style (and I won't be mentioned as author of translator, and if anybody introduces this term, I would like to be the one!).

The term does not cover every women. There is only one wife in the household, and some children. Sometimes the older parents (grandpa, grandma) or sisters/brothers (so any relative) also live there. It is, however, only one woman, who is in charge - and this is usually not the grandmother or the others but the mother/wife or whatever we call it. (I mean the wife of the head of the household.)

Beccamutt, I have to specify whether I am speaking of a man or a woman, but I don't like the terms "patriarch" and "matriarch" in a Mongolian conext.

Wow, it's much more difficult than I first thought... I think I'll end up writing simply "housewife"....


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## GreenWhiteBlue

beccamutt said:


> Is there a particular reason that the gender has to be included in some form and the generic "head of household" cannot work?


Absolutely. What we are describing is a sex-specific role found in a highly traditional society. 



> I think there is no set term in English because it is the actions/role of the person rather than the gender that defines the term...


1) This would not be true describing traditional roles in the past, and 
2) There is no set term because there are darn few native English speakers who are nomads living in yurts!


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## Franzi

Zsuzsu said:


> The term does not cover every women. There is only one wife in the household, and some children. Sometimes the older parents (grandpa, grandma) or sisters/brothers (so any relative) also live there. It is, however, only one woman, who is in charge - and this is usually not the grandmother or the others but the mother/wife or whatever we call it. (I mean the wife of the head of the household.)


 
If the siblings are unmarried and the married relatives are all grandparents, I think it would be perfectly clear to use "the wife" for this woman who is in charge.


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## Zsuzsu

Thanks Franzi, I will take it, then!


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## acme_54

More than 10 years later, I've ended up here researching a similar term to use instead of just "the woman/wife/housewife" in a translation from Spanish about meat consumption. My favourite contender so far is "female head of the household". As for the query term posted above, I like "yurtwife".


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