What is a "yome"?

In Japanese there are many many different words for "wife". If you look it up in the dictionary at least four definitions will appear. Most commonly used　in general official terms is 妻 (tsuma). For example, on my foreigner(alien) registration papers, my relation to my husband (who is registered as the person I live with) is 妻。 When referring to someone else`s wife it is usually polite to use 奥さん(oku-san) and it is not uncommon to use this when talking to someone`s wife if you don`t know/ can`t remember their name! 奥　(oku) actually means "right at the back" of somewhere and I guess the title "奥さん” is meant to represent where women used to be! Another interesting word used for wife is 家内(kanai) which basically means "inside the home" 女房(nyoubou) is the old-fashioned term but you still hear some men using it when referring to the missus.

嫁　(yome) actually translates as bride and in Japan when a woman marries she is removed from her own family register and becomes a member of her husband`s family register. This age-old tradition resulted in the phrase 嫁に行く"yome ni iku" (become a bride) which is regularly used instead of "get married". It is also the reason that it is common for women to read a "farewell" letter to her parents at her wedding reception. Most MILs will refer to their DIL as 家の嫁"uchi no yome" (our bride) which is significant as most Japanese MILs believe that when women marry into the family, they become the property of said family. Day-time television programmes and Japanese soap operas are full of 嫁ー姑"yome-shuutome" (DIL/MIL) battles and stories of MILs who treat their DILs terribly. Japanese MILs are actually notorious for being evil and both my SIL and I are quite thankful that although she is a bit of a ditz and can be a pain in the butt at times, our MIL is pretty harmless.

Some husbands these days prefer to use 嫁 (yome) instead of some of the other words for wife and I have to admit that I like that. There is something romantic about remaining a bride! :-)

This random diatribe was meant to explain how I chose the name of this blog and my ID. My husband in the eldest son （長男 chonan）and as a result I am the 長男の嫁　(chonannoyome). In Japanese society this is not such a good thing. I will explain why some other time..