Glossary of Relationship Terms

Marriage, Love Relationships

& Polykoity

By

Norman Elliott Anderson

M

Table of Contents
Introduction
- A -	- H -	O	U
- B -	- I -	- P -	- V -
- C -	J	Q	W
- D -	K	- R -	X
- E -	- L -	- S-Si -	Y
F	- M -	- Sk-Sz -	Z
- G -	- N -	- T -	©
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M:

1. Abbreviation for male.

2. Abbreviation for married.

3. A punning abbreviation for the French word aime ("loves").

See also dyadic notation, F, married, personal ad, triadic notation.

maamar (Hebrew):

A claim made upon one's brother's widow (q.v.) as part of the procedure towards bringing about a levirate marriage (q.v.).

Contrast halitza (q.v.). See also kiddushim, yavam, yibbum.

x Hebrew terms.

macadam (Spanglish):

A male seducer of women.

Source: Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language, by Ilan Stavans (c2003), which gives New York as a location for usage of the term.

See also agapet, Casanova, crumpet man, Don Juan, gay deceiver, jock, Lothario, ladies' man, macadamo, make-out artist, multimitus, philanderer, pick up artist, player, roué, skirt-chaser, smellsmock, stud, wolf, womanizer.

x Spanish and Spanglish terms.

macadamo (Spanglish):

A male seducer of women.

Source: Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language, by Ilan Stavans (c2003), which gives New York as a location for usage of the term.

See also agapet, Casanova, crumpet man, Don Juan, gay deceiver, jock, ladies' man, Lothario, macadam, make-out artist, multimitus, philanderer, pick up artist, player, roué, skirt-chaser, smellsmock, stud, wolf, womanizer.

x Spanish and Spanglish terms.

macadamizar (Spanglish):

To seduce (q.v.).

Source: Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language, by Ilan Stavans (c2003).

See also make-want, pick up.

x Spanish and Spanglish terms.

macarism:

1. Joyfully calling one or more others happy or blessed.

2. Taking pleasure in or sharing the happiness of one or more others.

3. The state of taking pleasure in or sharing the happiness of one or more others.

See also compersion, love, macarism, seeble, synletitia.

Macbeth, Lady:

See Lady Macbeth syndrome.

made for each other:

To be an especially good match for a marriage or love relationship in terms of the combination of similarities and complementarities.

Comment: The phrase suggests that God created these individuals to be companions in life, but it is often used without intending any theological connotation.

See also affinity, be-all and end-all, be all things to, beau mariage, be everything to, compatibility, connaturality, good match, happily married, ideal, intended, kinship, lovemap, love-match, love of one's life, match made in heaven, Miss Right, Mister Right, Ms. Right, mystic betrothal, nomogamosis, one, one-and-only, one true love, perfect catch, sexual compatibility, shalom bayit, soul mate, spiritual connection, spiritual husband, spiritual marriage, spiritual wife, true love.

madly in love:

In love, especially in such a way that the emotions associated therewith are intensely felt, perhaps even at a feverish pitch.

See also amour fou, besotted, crazy about, engouement, folie à deux, go gaga over, head over heels in love, infatuated, in love, limerent, love-cracked, sprung, violently in love.

mad money:

1. Return fare in the event that one wishes to bring a date to an abrupt end.

2. By extension, currency for an emergency or for an irresistable opportunity.

Comment: The phrase goes back at least to 1916.

I have seen the word "mad" in the phrase variously explained: (a) her date was too amorous ("mad") for her, or (b) they quarreled.

See also date.

x money.

Madonna:

See Virgin Mary.

Madonna-whore complex:

The mental classification of women as either purely chaste and therefore as wifely material or as sexually impure and therefore as having sexual value at most only as short-term partners. This is as distinguished from regarding women according to their qualities rather than according to their sexual histories.

Comments: The division of women into these two categories is called the Madonna-whore dichotomy. The position that this is the correct way to view women is called the Madonna-whore theory.

Both men and women are susceptible to the complex. A woman might build her self-image or judge other women accordingly. A man will sometimes relate to a woman according to which way he perceives her.

See also chastity, damaged goods, fallen, obscenity-purity complex, purity myth, sexism, sexual purity, Virgin Mary, whore.

x complexes.

x theories.

Mae West:

A woman with one or more characteristics associated with the American film actor and sex symbol, Mae West (1892-1980), especially a seductive, voluptuous, full-bodied, mature woman with wit, who makes evident her wide-ranging interest in sex.

See also chubby chaser, Delilah, Don Juaness, dramatic lover, dulcinea, jeune première, Juliet, leading lady, lothariette, Messalina, sex goddess, Valentino.

MAFM:

Mean age at first marriage.

Comment: Used in poipulation studies.

See also nuptiality, singulate mean age at marriage, SMAM.

x statistics.

magnetism:

1. The set of invisible forces that draw particular individuals together.

2. The power of an individual to attract another or others more generally.

Comment: This is, of course, imagery drawn from magnets. Sometimes the imagery is carried further as in "opposites attract" or "women are just drawn to him."

See also attraction, chemistry, chick magnet, draw to, je ne sais quoi, kavorka, kuzbu, pull, sex appeal, shiksappeal, string, X-appeal, x-factor, za za zoo.

mahr (Arabic):

In Islamic law, the gift given by the bridegroom to the bride upon their wedding and which is hers to keep.

See also arrha, brideprice, nikah, `umra, `urs, weotuma.

x Arabic terms.

x Koran and Islamic law.

maiden:

1. A young woman who has never been married.

2. A virgin.

See also angélica, bachelorette, dance barefoot, feme sole, jeune fille à marier, miss, never married, nubile, single, unmarried, virgin.

maiden aunt:

An unmarried woman.

See also ape leader, never married, odd woman, old maid, single, spinster, unmarried.

maiden name:

A woman's family name prior to her marriage.

See also miss, née.

mail marriage:

A marriage (q.v.) that eventuates after the parties have met through a matchmaking agency and have come to know each other by writing to each other and, typically at least, by sending pictures to each other.

See also e-mail marriage, long-distance relationship, love letter, mail-order bride, mail-order husband, pen pal, picture bride.

mail-order bride, or mail order bride (MOB):

A woman whom a man of another country or jurisdiction met through a fee-for-service program operated by an international or cross-jurisdictional matchmaking agency and who has become his fiancée or wife.

Comments: Sometimes the circumlocution, "pen pal," is used for a prospective mail-order bride, especially one with whom a man is corresponding. Use of this circumlocution sometimes helps agencies avoid laws regarding mail-order brides.

In the United States, the idea of mail-order brides sometimes carries a romantic mystique, since, according to legend, mail-order brides helped to populate the American West. See, for example, the 1951 movie, "Westward the Women," directed by William A. Wellman; starring Robert Taylor, Denise Darcel, and John McIntire.

Sometimes use of mail-order bride services do result in successful marriages and turn out to be advantageous to both bride and groom.

However, nowadays the accusation is made that much of what happens in the mail-order bride industry amounts to trafficking in women; and certainly problems abound:

• The mail-order bride business is indicative of and often takes advantage of a host of inequities with regard to sexes, ethnic groups, social classes, and countries.
• Often matchmaking agencies take advantage of dire circumstances in which women find themselves in their own countries, even to the point that sometimes matchmaking services are indistinguishable from bartering in women. Furthermore, agencies, in trying to sell their services, will often both employ ethnic stereotypes and play off of the prejudices of men.
• Women are often accused of immigration fraud or gold-digging or seeking sugar daddies, and sometimes the accusations are on the mark.
• Men sometimes, rather than being companionable and supportive, turn out to be deceitful, abusive, or exploitive and may use various means of control to keep the women in what amounts to sexual slavery. Furthermore, the men sometimes dash the women's hopes of being able to assist their families back home. Some mail-order brides are shown off as trophy wives.
• Whether this is indicative of a problem or not is a matter of debate, but anisonogamia is common, the typical mail-order bride being decades younger than the typical groom.
• A woman's ethnic community and perhaps others in her new country may stigmatize her for being a mail-order bride.
• If the marriage falls apart, the woman may find herself in desperate circumstances.
• Finally, the laws in either the woman's country of origin or her new country may work against her. Even more likely, her confusion about the laws may work against her, especially if she has been deceived about them.

Consequently there have been calls for either the greater regulation or the outlawing of the mail-order bride business. Meanwhile, mail-order bride support groups have been founded to help address the problems faced by mail-order brides.

The point is that this is a term that carries a lot of baggage.

Contrast mail-order husband (q.v.). See also anisonogamia, bride, dating service, fiancée, gold-digger, mail marriage, matchmaking, MOB, pen pal, picture bride, trophy wife, Web-wife, wife.

mail-order divorce, or mail order divorce:

A divorce (q.v.) obtained in a jurisdiction where one is neither living nor physically present. Generally such divorces are not recognized elsewhere.

See also foreign divorce.

mail-order husband, or mail order husband:

A man whom a woman of another country or jurisdiction met through a fee-for-service program operated by an international or cross-jurisdictional matchmaking agency and to whom she has since become engaged or married.

For comments, see under "mail-order bride."

See also dating service, fiancé, husband, mail marriage, matchmaking, pen pal, trophy husband, Web husband.

main squeeze:

The only or principal person with whom one is in a love relationship; the person one hugs the most, other than a consanguine relative.

See also amari, lover, major sqeeze, offscreen squeeze, partner.

x squeeze.

major squeeze:

The only or principal person with whom one is in a love relationship; the person one hugs the most tightly, other than a consanguine relative.

See also amari, lover, main squeeze, offscreen squeeze, partner.

x squeeze.

make a fox paw:

See fox paw.

make a move:

1. To take action to try to establish a love relationship with a person.

2. To approach a person in order to see whether that person might be amenable to a sexual relationship or encounter.

Comment: Also "make the move," "make my move," "make your move," "make his move," "make her move," etc.

See also hit on, love relationship, make a pass at, make a play for, make love to, put the make on, sexual relationship, solicit.

make a pass at:

To indicate to a person one's willingness to begin the steps towards either a sexual relationship or, perhaps, just a sexual encounter with that person; to make a sexual invitation or overture to a person.

See also come on to, cruise, flirt, hit on, make a move, make a play for, make love to, philander, proposition, put the make on, sexual relationship, solicit.

x pass.

make (a person) fall in love with, or make (a person) in love with, or make (a person) love:

1. To exert or to attempt to exert such a force of attraction upon a person that it is almost as though that person were being compelled to experience the set of feelings associated with being in love for the one exerting that force of attraction.

2. To cause someone to development feelings of intense attraction to another, for instance by means of a love potion or an enchantment.

See also come on to, conquest, fall in love, flirt, get under (one's) skin, limerence, make a play for, make-want, philander, put the mojo on, take (one's) breath away.

Quotation from D. H. Lawrence Illustrating "Make ... Love"
"I wouldn't make Anthony love you, Ursula, if you don't want him. It is not nice." "But, Maggie, I never made him love me," cried Ursula, dismayed and suffering, and feeling as if she had done something base.
From the novel: The Rainbow, by D. H. Lawrence (New York: B. W. Huebsch, c1915, 1921 printing): chapter 14, p. 394.

Quotation from D. H. Lawrence Illustrating "Make ... In Love"
[Gudrun Brangwen contemplating Gerald Crich] "... Every woman he comes across he wants to make her in love with him..."
From the novel: Women in Love, [by] D. H. Lawrence; with a foreword by the author and an introduction by Richard Aldington (New York: Viking Press, 1960): chapter 30, p. 454. Early editions: New York: Privately printed for subscribers only, 1920. London: Martin Secker, 1921.

make a play for:

To attempt to win someone as a lover.

See also come on to, flirt, hit on, make a move, make a pass at, make (a person) fall in love with, make love to, proposition, put the make on, put the mojo on, seduce, set (her) cap at him.

x play.

make like Lochinvar:

See Lochinvar.

"make love, not war":

A slogan that encapsulated two of the key stances of of a large part of the counterculture of the 1960s and '70s, which spurred the sexual revolution and opposed the Vietnam War. The slogan has been used in opposition to wars ever since.

Comment: Attributed to Gershon Legman, American social critic and folklorist, 1963, who however decryed the sexual revolution as a fake revolt. In his view, the repression of sexuality and the toleration of social violence are connected. This slogan confronts and combats that connection.

See also love generation, sexual revolution.

x slogans.

make love to:

1. To court or woo.

2. To attempt to initiate consensual sexual activity or at least some measure of physical intimacy with someone.

3. To engage in consensual sexual activity or at least some measure of physical intimacy with someone, especially as an expression of an emotional bond.

4. A euphemism meaning to engage in coitus with.

5. To attempt to charm.

Comment: The term "make love to" in the third sense is sometimes contrasted with "just have sex with," the first indicating the context of a loving relationship and the second a context simply of erotic attraction, as in casual sex.

See also art of love, clicket, consensual sex, consort with, court, fornicate, love, love-making, make a move, make a pass at, mate, make a play for, obligatory sex, philander, procreative meaning, pursue, put the make on, solemnize, sprog, stud, take, woo.

Quotation from D. H. Lawrence Illustrating "Making Love"
They [Ursula Brangwen and Anton Skrebensky] continued to be lovers, in the first wondering state of unrealization. Ursula told nobody; she was entirely lost in her own world. Yet some strange affectation made her seek for a spurious confidence. She had at school a quiet, meditative, serious-souled friend called Ethel, and to Ethel must Ursula confide the story. Ethel listened absorbedly, with bowed, unbetraying head, whilst Ursula told her secret. Oh, it was so lovely, his gentle, delicate way of making love! Ursula talked like a practised lover. "Do you think," asked Ursula,"it is wicked to let a man kiss you -- real kisses, not flirting?"
From the novel: The Rainbow, by D. H. Lawrence (New York: B. W. Huebsch, c1915, 1921 printing): chapter 11, p. 282.

make-out artist:

1. An individual who, by experience, has become adept at drawing people -- typically one partner per encounter -- into sexual activities, including necking, petting, and maybe more.

2. An individual who is skilled at lovemaking, due to practice with various partners.

Comment: With either sense, the term generally carries strong overtones of promiscuity.

See also agapet, box of assorted creams, crumpet man, giglet, hoe, hoochie, jock, ladies' man, lover, lovertine, macadam, macadamo, masher, multicipara, philanderer, pick up artist, promiscuity, punch board, punchbroad, seducer, seductress, she-wolf, skirt-chaser, slut, whore, wolf, womanizer.

make up:

See kiss and make up.

make-want, as in, "It's all make-want":

A set of techniques for attracting a particular person.

See also approach invitation, attentions, attraction, cap-setting, come-on, comether, feminine wiles, flirtation, masculine wiles. seduction, set (her) cap at him.

make-want, as in, "One must make-want":

To attempt to attract a particular person actively, in fact, to do better than merely attempt; to ignite and fan the flames of desire in another for oneself.

Comment: The verb is intransitive.

See also assot, attract, come on to, conquest, get under (one's) skin, macademizar, make (a person) fall in love with, philander, pull, put the mojo on, seal the deal, seduce.

mal-aimé (French):

1. Ill-loved.

2. Poorly liked.

See also faux amour, like, love.

x French terms.

Quotation from Shirley Abbott Illustrating "Mal-Aimé"
That afternoon I sat dejected, tearful, reading Guillaume Apollinaire, mad poet, who appeared before my eyes like an image on the silver screen. Here in my book was his photograph: he'd been shot in battle and his head was swathed in a white bandage. His head ached, no doubt, as mine ached. He wandered the streets of Paris, singing the song of the mal-aimé, the badly loved, the man who had never been loved properly, the man crazed by the sun in the day, the fog in the night, without enough sense just to go ahead and die. So he claimed, stumbling.
From: Love's Apprentice, [by] Shirley Abbott (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1998): p. 119; cf. p. 59. The Apollinaire reference is to "La Chanson du Mal-Aimé" (inscription dated 1903).

malakos (adjective, masculine singular form); plural, malakoi (Koine Greek):

1. Soft; genteel; given to finery; or, as a masculine substantive, a pampered person.

2. Faint-hearted; cowering; or, as a masculine substantive, a coward; a sissy.

3. Lax; yielding; or, as a masculine substantive, a person who lacks either a character-edge or clear moral boundaries; a person who is lax personally or with others.

4. Softly seductive; enticing; or, as a masculine substantive, an enticer.

5. Effeminate; or, as a masculine substantive, a male who habitually affects traits culturally associated with females or who seeks to be treated as a female.

6. Given to playing the receptive role in sex; or, as a masculine substantive, a pathic (q.v.). This sense seems to have been rare and other terms were generally preferred; but it can be documented, for instance in pseudo-Aristotle, Problems 4.26. Compare, perhaps, the Latin, cinaedus malacus, at Plautus, Miles Gloriousus 668; however, contrast the apparently heterosexual moechum malacum, at Plautus, Truculentus 609-610. (I would deem that these Plautus references are better understood as Latin examples of sense 4.)

Comments: The term is often discussed in English because of its appearance in a vice list at 1 Corinthians 6:9, where, possibly, the Apostle Paul was pairing its plural, malakoi, with arsenokoitai. Of the many senses of the term in Greek, above only some of those that might fit into a vice list are given.

If, as some interpreters suggest, malakoi in 1 Corinthians means "catamites" and "arsenokoitai" means "pederasts," then the two terms together may be alluding back to and perhaps even interpreting the prohibition in Leviticus 18:22 = 20:13 of a man lying with a male as one lies with a female -- either interpreting it or designating one application of it. Since that prohibition is about a certain type of sexual connection (q.v.), malakoi as it appears in 1 Corinthians, rather than indicating a category of persons, would instead be a relationship term.

However, that interpretation is just one of many that are possible. Among them are these:

• Paul had in mind something along the lines of one of the other definitions mentioned above, such as "those who are morally lax."
• Paul had in mind Deuteronomy 22:5, which prohibits a woman from wearing a man's apparel and a man from wearing a woman's.
• Paul had in mind people who were flexible about the marital and sexual boundaries of Leviticus 18-21.

At this writing, I tend to favor the last of these interpretations.

By the way, according to the Greek Grammar, by Herbert Weir Smith; revised by Gordon M. Messig (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, c1956): §1015, "The masculine is used for person in general."

For scholarly discussion of the term, see my "Excursus on Male Homosexuality in the Bible."

See also active-passive split, arsenokoitês, "as with womankind," catamite, cinaedus, condone, gay male, homosexual, Lasterkatalog, man-boy love, porneia, pornos, purity myth, pussy-whipped, sexual immorality, sexual permissiveness, sexual sin, sodomite, wittol.

x Greek terms.

Quotation from Dionysius of Halicarnasus Illustrating "Malakos"
The tyrant of Cumae at that time [504-ca. 490 B.C.] was Aristodemus ... who was called by the citizens Malacus ... either because when a boy he was effeminate [thêludrias] and allowed himself to be treated as a woman, as some relate, or because he was of a mild nature and slow [malakos] to anger, as others state.
From: Dionysius of Halicarnasus (fl. 30-7 B.C.), Roman Antiquities 7.2.4 (Loeb Classical Library, 1950). See 7.9.3-5 for a description of effeminacy in children, which, by the way, lacks a sexual component.

maldit (Occitan = langue d'Oc):

"Bad thing to say."

1. A complaint or invective in the form of song lyrics, commonly, but not always, against a beloved or a former beloved.

2. The genre of such song lyrics.

Comments: The term is associated with the troubadours of Provence (southeastern France) in the late Middle Ages.

Such lyrics in the form of a complaint plus a dismissal are called a maldit-comjat or maldit-comiat.

See also comjat, courtly love, descort, discourse of desire, escondich, love lyrics, love poem, love song.

x Occitan.

male chauvinism:

1. A view that asserts either a generally natural superiority of human males over human females or a formal superordination of human males over human females.

2. On the part of a human male, acting out of a belief in the superiority or formally higher status of human males relative to human females or acting as though he believed in it.

Contrast female chauvinism (q.v.) and feminism (q.v.). See also double standard, "goose and gander" theory, "head of the wife," patriarchalism, sexism, sexual chauvinism.

x chauvinism.

male code of silence:

See code of silence.

male concubine:

1. A kept man (q.v.)

2. A man who is a woman's lover (q.v.) without being officially married to her.

3. A man who is a secondary partner.

Contrast concubine (q.v.). See also boytoy, cavaliere servante, cicisbeo, gigolo, leman, other man, partner, secondary partner, toy boy.

Quotation from D. H. Lawrence Illustrating "Male Concubine"
[Chapter 18, page 332, the character Constance Chatterley to her lover, Oliver Mellors] "But you don't want me to go back to Clifford, do you?" she asked him. "What do you want yourself?" he replied. "I want to live with you," she said simply. [333] ".... I hate the impudence of money, and I hate the impudence of class. So in the world as it is, what have I to offer a woman?" "But why offer anything? It's not a bargain. It's just that we love one another," she said. "Nay, nay! It's more than that. Living is moving and moving on. My life won't get down the proper gutters, it just won't. So I'm a bit of a wasste ticket by myself. And I've no business to take a woman into my life, unless my life does something and gets somewhere, inwardly at least, to keep us both fresh. A man must offer a woman some meaning in his life, if it's going to be an isolated life, and if she's a genuine woman. I can't be just your male concubine." "Why not?" she said. "Why, because I can't. And you would soon hate it." "As if you couldn't trust me," she said. The grin flickered on his face. "The money is yours, the position is yours, the decisions will lie with you. I'm not just my lady's fucker, after all."
From: Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D. H. Lawrence; with an introduction by Mark Schorer (New York: Grove Press, c1959): pp. 332-333. "This edition is the third manuscript version, first published by Giuseppe Orioli, Florence, 1928." The elision is mine.

male couple:

Two men who are in a dyadic homosexual relationship together.

Contrast female couple (q.v.). See also couple, dyad, gay male, homosexual, male marriage.

male-dominance polygyny:

Acquisition of a harem by a male, which is achieved by using his appealing personal traits and characterisitics to his advantage, thus outshining his revivals and attracting several females. Said of any harem-gathering species as apropos.

See also female-defense polygyny, harem, intrasexual competition, mate guarding, polygyny, resource-defense polygyny, search polygyny.

male-female friendship:

A boy and a girl or a man and a woman knowing each other, enjoying conversation together, enjoying time in each other's company, and being mutually aware of liking each other.

Comment: It is often said that it is good to pick one's love relationship partner(s) from among one's friends; also that spousal relationships are enhanced by the spouses being best friends. However, many do not believe that a heterosexual man and a heterosexual woman can be just friends, for (they argue) there is always sexual tension between them if they enjoy each other in the least and friendship between a man and a woman is but a stage in a development towards romantic love. Others argue the opposite, that male-female friendship need not entail romantic love and, in fact, is an important sort of relationship to respect in a culture where men and women routinely work together. After all, a man and a woman might be just friends because, for instance:

• they are not physically attracted to each other;
• their friendship is limited to spheres where sexual activity would be out of place;
• each or at least one of the friends is sexually exclusive to someone else;
• neither wants to endanger a valued friendship by submitting it to the risks of a sexual relationship;
• one or both may be living by a religious code that, for some reason, prevents their coming together sexually;
• one or both may be commited to celibacy;
• one or both may be prohibited from stepping over a professional boundary;
• they've put a sexual phase of their relationship behind them and are now "just friends"; or,
• neither views their friendship as being any different from a same-sex friendship.

All of this discussion is frequently present as an overtone when the term is used.

See also amour de tête, comarital, cuddle buddy, dammerel, erotic friendship, friendship, friendship-wih-sex, heterosexual frienship, intimate friendship, just friends, platonic love, platonic relationship, relationship, spiritual connection, soul mate, Sunday husband, umfriend, UST relationship.

x female-male friendship.

male gynophilia:

See gynophilia.

male insanity syndrome:

The tendency of many a man always to be looking for a woman better than the one he has.

See also bigger, better deal; order of Saint Beelzebub; trade up.

x syndromes.

male marriage:

1. A situation in which two men, not brothers and not father and son, are living together.

2. A male homosexual domestic partnership.

3. An instance in which men are legally married to each other.

See also civil union, counterfeit bride, daddy/boy relationship, domestic partnership, female marriage, gay marriage, homosexual marriage, household, male couple, marriage, same-sex marriage.

male-partner duplication:

See husband-doubling.

male surplus:

More men than women in a given context, especially more men available to become mates than women available to become mates.

Contrast female surplus (q.v.). See also bride shortage, spanogyny.

male widow:

A man not currently married who has lost his most recent wife.

See also husband, widow, widower, widow man.

man, as in "my man," "your man," "her man":

Boyfriend or husband.

Comment: Note, for instance, the Loretta Lynn lyrics, "You Ain't Woman Enough to Take My Man" (1966) and the Tammy Wynette/Billy Sherrill lyrics, "Stand By Your Man" (1968).

See also boyfriend, husband, new man in (her) life, other man, woman.

man bait:

1. Anything used to entice a human male into being caught.

2. A woman used to entice a human male, for instance as part of a blackmail scheme.

3. A woman's physical attributes or certain ones, insofar as they are used to attract a human male.

See also attraction, Delilah, fatal attraction, femme fatale, siren, white widow.

x bait.

man-boy love:

Homoeroticism between an adult male and a male minor, sometimes involving a continuing relationship between the two.

Comments: In modern cultures, such a relationship is sometimes compared to the erastës-erömenos (or pederast-catamite) relationship accepted in some ancient Greek-speaking cultures. However, the pedophilia aspect of man-boy love is widely regarded with horror in modern times, even where homoeroticism is accepted; and lasting psychological harm to minors has been, if not universally, at least widely documented.

Many issues are raised by man-boy love, for instance:

• Is harm to minors inherent or culturally induced? Is there a moral difference for the adult involved? What are the moral implications for a culture?
• In a modern culture where there is a divide between responsibility allotted to minors and responsibility allotted to adults, can such a relationship ever be characterized as chiefly one of affection rather than one of exploitation of a less powerful party?
• How does a society mentally frame and cope with such sexual desire on the part of some of its members, particularly when such desire is persistent and when the fulfillment of a large variety of other sexual desires is widely regarded as a good or even requisite?

See also active-passive split, arsenokoitês, catamite, daddy/boy relationship, gay male, gugusse, gunsel, homosexual, jail bait, love that can never be told, love that dare not speak its name, malakos, pornos.

man crush:

Infatuation of a straight human male with another human male.

Comment: Also called "boy crush" and "guy crush."

Contrast girl crush (q.v.). See also bromance, crush, friendship, infatuation, straight.

x boy crush.

x guy crush.

 

Mandingo party:

An orgy arranged for men of black African descent to copulate with non-black women (usually white) in the presence of their non-black husbands or boyfriends.

Comments: In standard parlance, Mandingo refers to a black-skinned person inhabiting the upper Niger river valley, to such persons collectively, or to any of their languages. As a slang term, it refers to a man of black African descent, especially one endowed with an exceptionally large penis.

See also allotriorasty, candaulism, creolism, hotwife, martymachlia, miscegenation, mixoscopia, mudshark, orgy, racial commingling, sex party, watching, white wife.

x party.

m'anenet (Hebrew):

A woman or girl who seeks to have her betrothal as a minor annulled, this before taking up residence with her husband, which might otherwise occur upon her reaching maturity.

Comment: The root meaning of the word is "to refuse."

See also kiddushim.

x Hebrew terms.

man friend:

A physically mature male who returns affection.

Comment: This term is sometimes used as a substitute for the more juvenile sounding "boyfriend," although there is no age limit on "boyfriend."

See also beau, boyfriend, friend, gentleman friend, partner, romantic friend, Sunday husband, woman friend.

manic love:

An obsessive self-consuming attraction to or attachment to a person that is characterized by emotions, such as jealousy and possessiveness, taken to extremes. Typically such emotions have a destructive effect upon ties with the one so loved.

See also love.

man in one's life:

1. A male with whom one is, was, or hopes to be in a love relationship.

2. A male family member.

3. A male who has affected one's life, especially in a beneficial way.

Comment: With this phrase, articles, singulars, plurals, and even tenses, along with context, tend to nuance meaning. Consider:

• "She wants a man in her life": she's looking for a mate.
• "You are the man in my life": you are central to me, other males don't compare.
• "You've had many men in your life": you've had many male lovers; or, many men have imparted something of themselves for your benefit.
• "The men in your life are so supportive of you": your male family members have a record of backing you impressively well; or, you have a record of choosing male lovers who back you impressively well; or (if applicable), your current male lovers back you impressively well.

See also lifemate, life partner, lover, mate, partner, woman in one's life.

man-keen:

Keen on men; having an activated male-oriented libido; desirous of mingling with human males, especially for the purpose of finding one or more partners in sex or love. Said especially of a woman.

See also andromania, androphilia, boy crazy, heterosexual, straight, woman-keen.

mannered love:

See amour-goût.

man of easy virtue:

See easy virtue.

man of (one's) dreams:

A human male who appears to fit the image of what one imagines to be an ideal mate for oneself.

See also demon-lover, dream date, fantasy life, ideal, lovemap, Mister Right, Mister Wonderful, perfect catch, person of (one's) dreams, Prince Charming, template (for a lover), woman of (one's) dreams.

man plan:

A course of action to incorporate a male into one's love life.

See also dating plan, Rules Girl.

man-tired:

Wearied from being hassled by one or more human males; fatigued from being nagged by one or more men.

Comment: Coined by me, July 8, 2009, on analogy with "woman-tired."

See also break, maritodespotism, woman-tired.

man to a woman:

See be man to a woman.

manus (legal term):

Special legal power held by a husband.

See also gamical, "head of the wife," ius mariti, mund.

manwalan (Hindi?):

The boy-bridegroom in the Nayar rite known as the tali-kettu-kalyanam.

See also boy-bridegroom, tali-kettu-kalyanam.

x Hindi terms.

map of tenderness:

See carte de tendre.

marble:

An acronym standing for "married but lesbian": a woman who is married to a man but of same-sex orientation.

Comment: Apparently a shortening of MarBLes in order to have a natural singular, as in, "I am a marble."

See also MarBLes.

MarBLes, or marbles:

An acronym standing for "married but lesbian": the set of women who are married to a man but are of same-sex orientation.

Comments: The abbreviation MBL is also used.

"Marbles" is also slang for "testicles."

See also beard, homosexuality, lesbian, marble, MBL, merkin.

marginalized sexually:

See sexually marginalized.

mariage à la mode (French):

See marriage à la mode.

mariage à trois (French):

A marriage (q.v.) of three; usually one man and two women living together, especially where one woman is more particular at satisfying the man's sexual needs and the other his soul.

See also domestic trio, French arrangement, ménage à trois, non-monogamy, spiritual husband, spiritual wife.

x French terms.

mariage blanc (French):

"White marriage"; unconsummated marriage.

Comment: Un mariage blanc means "an unconsummated marriage"; le mariage blanc means "the unconsummated marriage."

See also abstinence, accubitus, agapêtê, agapêtos, agenobiosis, celibacy, celibate marriage, consummation, demi-vierge, diasteunia, drone, intramarital chastity, involuntary celibacy, marriage, sexless love, subintroducta, syneisaktism, syneisaktos, white marriage.

x French terms.

Quotation from Deborah Davis Illustrating "Mariage Blanc"
[Regarding Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau (1859-1915) and her husband, Pedro] According to one tale that spread rapidly throughout Paris after her wedding, Amélie's husband was so obsessed with the virginal young Amélie that he had agreed to a mariage blanc -- a sexless marriage -- to persuade her to be his wife. Pedro Gautreau upheld his end of the bargain by not forcing her to fulfill her wifely duties.
From: Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X, [by] Deborah Davis (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2004, c2003): p. 106.

mariage de convenance (French):

Marriage of convenience (q.v.).

See also marriage, marriage of reason.

x French terms.

mariage de raison (French):

"Marriage for reason"; marriage of convenience (q.v.).

See also marriage, marriage of reason.

x French terms.

Quotation from P. W. K. Stone Illustrating "Mariage de Raison"
Young women in his day [the day of Choderlos de Laclos, 1741-1803] were given very little grounding in the facts of life...The marriage, moreover, would have been arranged solely on a basis of mutual advantage to the families concerned. The mariage de raison was an almost universally accepted institution -- and almost the only obligations it imposed were economic ones.
From the introduction to the novel: Les Liaisons dangereuses, [by] Choderlos de Laclos; translated and with an introduction by P. W. K. Stone (Baltimore, Md.: Penguin Books, 1961; in: The Penguin Classics; L116): p. 11. The mark of omission is mine.

mariage d'inclination (French):

Marriage of inclination (q.v.).

See also marriage.

x French terms.

Marilyn syndrome:

Proneness to damaging romantic errors; a tendency to fall love with the wrong people, especially to do so in such a way that one becomes as strongly attached to each of them as a drug addict is to a drug.

Comments: By "wrong people" is usually meant "wrong men."

Named after the actress, Marilyn Monroe (born, Norma Jeane Mortenson; baptized, Norma Jeane Baker).

Source: Lovesick: The Marilyn Syndrome, [by] Elizabeth Macavoy and Susan Israelson (New York : D. I. Fine, c1991).

See also attraction junky, bad boy syndrome, demon-lover, Dirty Harry syndrome, limerence, love addiction, lovemap, Mister Wrong, multiphilia, poor match, relationship addiction, romance junky, sexual addiction, template (for a lover).

x syndromes.

maritage:

1. A feudal lord's right to dispose in marriage of a vassal's minor heir, heiress, or widow.

2. A fee paid by a vassal for the waiver of such a right.

3. A fine assessed a vassal for the violation of such a right.

4. A variant form of maritagium (q.v.).

See also avail of marriage, custom of the country, droit de seigneur, formariage, ius connubii, lairwite, mercheta mulierum, widow.

maritagium; plural, maritagia:

1. The property given with a daughter in marriage, especially per feudal custom.

2. A variant form of "maritage" (q.v.).

See also amober, arrha, avail of marriage, brideprice, dowry, duplicem valorem maritagii, frankmarriage, liberum maritagium, valorem maritagii, weotuma.

Quotation from William Blackstone Illustrating "Maritagium"
BUT, before they came of age, there was still another piece of authority, which the guardian was at liberty to exercise over his infant wards; I mean the right of marriage, (maritagium, as contradistinguished from matrimonium) which in it's feodal sense signifies the power, which the lord or guardian in chivalry had of disposing of his infant ward in matrimony. For, while the infant was in ward, the guardian had the power of tendering him or her a suitable match, without disparagement, or inequality: which if the infants refused, they forfeited the value of the marriage, valorem maritagii, to their guardian; that is, so much as a jury would assess, or any one would bona fide give to the guardian for such an alliance: and if the infants married themselves without the guardian's consent, they forfeited double the value, duplicem valorem maritagii.
From: Commentaries on the Laws of England. Book the Second, [Of the Rights of Things], by William Blackstone (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1766): chapter 5, §1.5, p. 70. Regarding the age of wards, see §1.4, p. 67 and chapter 6, §2.7, p. 88. By "infant" was meant "minor."

marital:

Of or relating to marriage (q.v.).

See also bridal, comarital, conjugal, connubial, extramarital, gamical, hymeneal, intermarital, intramarital, matrimonial, nonmarital, nuptial, postmarital, premarital, relational, spousal.

marital aptitude (Lewis M. Terman and Paul Wallin, 1949¹)

A person's suitability for marriage in terms of internal and relational capacities and characteristics, especially insofar as those capacities and characteristics can be quantified and used either:

• as indicators of how counseling should proceed; or,
• when compiled with quantifications for a group of people, as prediction factors with regard, for instance, to the upcoming incidence of divorce within a certain number of years.

See also compatibility, good match, incompatibiity, love quotient, poor match, relational intelligence, romantically challenged, sexual intelligence.

x statistics.

Quotations from Terman and Wallin Illustrating "Marital Aptitude"
[502] Terman's marital aptitude (prediction) test and his marital happiness test were administered in 1940 to more than 600 of his gifted subjects and their spouses.
[503] The prediction test used in the comparison of divorced and non-divorced couples does not include the numerous items relating to the background of the marriage. The information on such items is usable only with married subjects or with subjects tested immediately before marriage, and it was desired to make the test one which could be used with any unmarried subject so that it could serve as a test of the individual's marital aptitude. In the remainder of the discussion it will be designated as the marital aptitude test.
[504] ... husband-wife composite marital aptitude score ...
"The Validity of Marriage Prediction and Marital Adjustment Tests," [by] Lewis M. Terman and Paul Wallin, in: American Sociological Review; v. 14, no. 4 (August 1949): pp. 497-504, specifically pp. 501-504.

marital bliss:

See bliss.

marital blues:

Sadness about one's present marriage; depression, a set of sad emotions, or a melancholy mood due to problems or suspected problems in one's marriage or due to problems with marriage itself as one is experiencing it; unhappiness, be it only temporary and partial, with:

• one's spouse,
• something one's spouse has said or done or is suspected to be guilty of,
• what one has said or done that would or has hurt one's spouse,
• the way one is relating with one's spouse, or
• the conditions of one's marriage.

Contrast, for example, bliss (q.v.). See also cagamosis, cavel, desperate, dysfunctional relationship, emotional divorce, estrangement, fall out of love, heterogamosis, incompatibility, love-hate relationship, loveless marriage, love-resolves-all myth, love-trouble, marriage shock, marriage-trap, misérables, poor match, post break-up funk, post coitum triste, postmarital blues, punishment through marriage, rocky relationship, soul-mate problem, toxic relationship, unhappily married, unsuccessful marriage, WMD.

x blues.

x marriage blues.

marital counseling:

1. Advisory and/or mediatorial assistance given spouses in working through issues in their marriage and in clarifying a course of action with respect to their marriage. Typically such assistance is given by a member of the clergy, a therapist, a psychiatrist, or a medical doctor, as appropriate.

2. The benefit or practice of the above.

See also couples counseling, family counseling, genetic counseling, love dare, marital therapy, premarital counseling, relationship counseling.

x counseling.

x marriage counseling.

marital exchange:

See generalized marital exchange, restricted marital exchange.

maritality:

Extraordinary affection of a wife for her husband, especially where undue.

Contrast uxoriousness (q.v.). See also affection, conjugal love, marital love, meritorious, Pygmalion effect.

marital love:

An abiding affection and caring of one spouse for another, inclusive of sexual expression.

Comment: Marital love has been classified variously over the millennia. Paul the Apostle spoke of agapë as a form of love to be desired in marriage (Ephesians 5:25-33). Thomas Aquinas (circa 1225-1274), the Scholastic philosopher and theologian, regarded marriage as a form of amicitia or friendship (Summa Contra Gentiles, book 3, chapters 123-124), hearkening back to Aristotle's more general comments on friendship (philia) in the Nichomachian Ethics 8.5-6 (1157b 36; 1158a 10). Many today would regard marriage as either an expression or culmination of romantic love (q.v.) and as a relationship of ongoing affection with an erotic component.

See also affection, agapic love, conjugal love, love, maritality, married life, "one flesh," uxorious.

marital opportunity ratio (MOR):

The number of men seeking marriage compared to the number of women seeking marriage, relative to certain criteria such as proximity and age range.

See also assortive mating, availability index, dating pool, marriage gap, marriage market, marriage squeeze, mating gradient, propinquity factor, spanandry, spaneria, spanogyny.

x statistics.

marital rape:

1. The act of forcing sexual activity upon one's nonconsenting spouse or of coercing one's nonconsenting spouse to engage in sexual activity.

2. The perpetration of non-defensive violence against one's spouse in a way that involves genital or anal contact.

Comments: By force or coercion is meant overpowering by strength or the use of threat of bodily harm. Thus, for example, a threat to leave would not be covered.

The precise legal definition of marital rape varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and in many places is not recognized in the law at all.

See also abuse, consent to sex, domestic violence, honeymoon assault, rape, spousal rape, spouse abuse, wife abuse.

marital state:

The condition of being joined together as spouses, spoken of either generally or in reference to certain individuals; the condition of being married.

See also benefit of marriage, marriage, state of marriage.

marital status:

1. In official documents, ordinarily one's legal, public footing in relation to marriage, typically either single (never married), married, divorced (not remarried), or widowed (not remarried).

2. In personal conversation, one's current eligibility, ultimate eligibility, or ineligibility for marriage.

3. Also in personal conversation, one's eligibility or ineligibility for a love relationship in the eyes of the other, which often means a fine parcing of the type of any relationship one is in, of what the conditions of the relationship are, and even of whether or not one is happy in it.

See also attached, divorcé, divorced, divorcée, eligible, estranged, ever-married, feme sole, formerly married, free agent, happily married, in circulation, ineligible, marriagefree, married, miss, Mrs., never-married, out of circulation, previously married, re-singled, separated, single, unattached, widow-bewitched, widowed.

x statistics.

marital therapy:

1. The use or benefit of professionally developed methods to help the spouses in a troubled marriage cope better with or alleviate problems in that marriage and to help them clarify a course of action as to what to do with the marriage.

2. Professional counseling of partners in troubled marriages as a practice.

See also couples therapy (especially the comment), family therapy, marital counseling, relationship coaching, relationship therapy.

x therapy.

mariticidal:

Characterized by or pertaining to mariticide (q.v.).

mariticide:

Murder of one's spouse.

See also abuse, crime of passion, domestic violence, mariticidal, spousal homicide, spouse abuse, uxoricide, viricide.

maritodespotic:

Pertaining to or characterized by maritodespotism (q.v.).

maritodespotism:

Use of fear or force by a husband to dominate his wife; marital tyranny on the part of a husband.

Contrast: uxorodespotism (q.v.). See also abuse, androcracy, androlatry, ball and chain, bedroom politics, doll's house marriage, doll's house relationship, "head of the wife," high maintenance, husband worship, lord, man-tired, maritodespotic, master, possessiveness, rule the roost, spouse abuse, toxic relationship, unilateralism.

maritorious:

Given to doting on one's husband.

Contrast uxorious (q.v.). See also loveydovey, maritality.

market:

See marriage market, meat market.

marriage:

1. An ongoing commitment of a man and a woman to each other to be bonded sexually and to be loyal one to the other.

2. An ongoing commitment of two people to each other to be bonded sexually and to be loyal one to the other.

3. An ongoing commitment of at least one man and at least one woman to each other to be bonded sexually, either directly or through one or more other partners, and to be loyal to one another.

4. An ongoing commitment of two or more people to each other to be bonded sexually, either directly or through one or more other partners, and to be loyal to one another.

5. A socially recognized institution in which a man and a woman function together domestically as a basic unit of society, part of the idea being that sexual urges and emotions can thereby be channeled in an orderly direction and another part of the idea being that a large subset of marriages will function as the setting for the birthing and rearing of children.

6. A relationship that is socially approved for both copulation and procreation.

7. The state of primary affinity (q.v.) through which kinship obligations are conferred upon a certain set of people.

8. Formal civil recognition of a domestic unit composed of at least two partners -- the range of recognized composition being defined by the state -- for the purpose of both social management and the appropriate assignment of child custody and distribution of assets in the event of the break-up of that unit.

9. A sexual union that meets the following criteria:

• It is between one man and one woman.
• It is by mutual consent.
• The intent is for each partner to be sexually and especially procreatively exclusive to the other.
• The intent is to remain united until parted by death.

10. A marrying, wedding, or uniting.

11. A relationship that is conceived of from its inception to its end and that encompasses a marriage in one of the narrower senses of the term. (See lexical example under "romantic theology.")

Comment 1: Substantive definitions of marriage can generally be sorted into three categories:

• Some are essentialistic and attempt to describe the universal heart of a widespread phenomenon. Paradigm: Individuals before each other and God. (Definitions 1-4 above.)
• Some are positivistic, merely describing broad parameters of word usage and leaving to each individual culture the exact definition of marriage. Paradigm: Marriage as an artificial construction by society. (Definitions 5-8 above.)
• Some are prescriptive, laying out criteria that must be met for a relationship to be a marriage. Paradigm: A religious institution or the state either mediating between an essentialistic ideal and cultural forms or imposing an artificial construction. (Definition 9 above.)

Comment 2: The set of all marriages and the set of all committed love relationships overlap but are not coterminus. Some marriages are loveless, and some committed love relationships do not meet a given definition of marriage.

See also accouplement, ad hoc union, adultery, alcoholic marriage, anisonogamia, anuloma marriage, arranged marriage, arrangement, ask for (someone's) hand in marriage, ball and chain, beau mariage, bed-match, beena marriage, belief in marriage, believe in marriage, benefit of marriage, bona fide marriage, Boston marriage, bourgeois marriage, bridelock, broomstick-marriage, Californian marriage, capture marriage, celebrity marriage, Celestial Marriage, celibate marriage, ceremonial marriage, child-marriage, civil marriage, civil union, clandestine marriage, clandestine polygamy, class-marriage, clerical marriage, closed group marriage, closed marriage, cluster marriage, coemption, colleague marriage, collusional marriage, committed love relationship, common law marriage, communal marriage, commuter marriage, companionate marriage, companionship marriage, complementary marriage, complex marriage, confarreation, conjugal, conjunction, connubial, consanguine family, consensual marriage, consent to marriage, consequences of sex outside of marriage, consolation marriage, contract marriage, conventional marriage, corporate marriage, couple, covenant marriage, cross-cousin marriage, Defense of Marriage Act, different-sex marriage, doll's house marriage, domestic partnership, dual-career marriage, dual-employed marriage, duet for life, ecclesiastical marriage, electronic wedlock, e-mail marriage, equal marriage, erëbu marriage, fairy-tale marriage, female marriage, first-cousin marriage, five kinds of relationship, Flagg marriage, Fleet marriage, flexible monogamy, four-cornered marriage, free marriage, function of marriage, future together, gamical, -gamy (see there for a list of words ending in -gamy), gay marriage, gerontogamy, give up on a marriage, give up on marriage, good-enough marriage, green-card marriage, group marriage, half-marriage, hand in marriage, happy marriage, heterosexual marriage, his and her marriage, hollow marriage, holy matrimony, holy wedlock, homosexual marriage, icebreaker marriage, immigration marriage fraud, individual marriage, informal marriage, institutionalized marriage, institution of marriage, interethnic marriage, interfacial marriage, interfaith marriage, intermarriage, international marriage, interracial marriage, interreligious marriage, intrinsic marriage, jactitation of marriage, kiddushim, kinship, knot, lavender marriage, left-handed marriage, levirate marriage, line marriage, loveless marriage, love marriage, low-sex marriage, mail marriage, male marriage, mariage à trois, mariage blanc, mariage d'inclination, mariage de raison, marital, marital state, marriage ..., marriagefree, married, married couple, married life, marry, martyr of the marriage system, mate, mate selection, matrimony, mésalliance, miscegenation, mixed marriage, mixed-orientation marriage, mock marriage, monogamy, morganatic marriage, multilateral marriage, multiple marriage, mystic marriage, nikah, no-sex marriage, no sex outside of marriage, nuptial, nuptias non concubitus sed consensus facit, occult marriage, off-the-rack marriage, "one flesh," open-ended contract marriage, open group marriage, open marriage, other terms than marriage, outmarriage, Ozzie and Harriet marriage, pairing family, paperless marriage, paper marriage, paradisal marriage, parental marriage, partner, patriarchal marriage, peer marriage, permanent arrangement, planned marriage, plural marriage, political marriage, polyandry, polygamy, polygyny, polymarriage, postlapsarian marriage, practice marriage, pratiloma marriage, precocity of marriage, precondition for sex, preferential marriage, prelapsarian marriage, prender de baron, presumptive marriage, primary relationship, procreative marriage, procreative meaning, progressive marriage, proof marriage, proxy marriage, punaluan family, putative marriage, quality relationship, quickie marriage, ratified marriage, reconstituted marriage, reiterated marriage, remarriage, romantic marriage, romantic theology, sacramental marriage, sambandham, same-sex marriage, secret marriage, separation of marriage and state, serial marriage, sexless marriage, sex-starved marriage, sexual connection, sexuality, sexual relationship, S-group, sham marriage, she-troth, shidduch, shift marriage, shotgun wedding, smock marriage, sororate marriage, spiritual marriage, spiritual wifery, splice, spouse, starter marriage, state of marriage, strange union, successful marriage, symbiotic marriage, syndyasmian family, synergic marriage, temporary marriage, traditional monogamy, training marriage, trans-conference marriage, tree marriage, trial marriage, tribal marriage, Turkish marriage, two-step marriage, unequal marriage, union, unitive meaning, unsuccessful marriage, usus, utilitarian marriage, visiting marriage, voidable marriage, void marriage, voluntarily child-free marriage, walk-in marriage, wedding, wedlock, white magic of marriage, white marriage, widow marriage, yoke, zug.

Quotation from Havelock Ellis Illustrating "Marriage"
Sexual union, involving the cohabitation, temporary or permanent, of two or more persons, and having for one of its chief ends the production and care of offspring, is commonly termed marriage. The group so constituted forms a family.
From: Studies in the Psychology of Sex. Volume VI, Sex in Relation to Society, by Havelock Ellis (Philadelphia: F. A. Davis Co., 1913, c1910): chapter 10, "Marriage," p. 421.

Quotation from Ambrose Bierce Illustrating "Marriage"
Marriage, n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.
Humor from: The Devil's Dictionary, [by] Ambrose Bierce (New York: Dover Publications, 1958): p. 86. Originally published in full in v. 7 (1911) of The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce (New York: Neale Publishing Co., 1909-1912).

Quotation from Frederick Parker Walton Illustrating "Marriage"
In the Institutes of Justinian marriage is defined as the union of the male and the female, involving an unbroken intimacy for life -- viri et mulieris conjunctio individuam vitae consuetudinem continens. This is perhaps a modification of the definition by the jurist Modestinus given in the Digest [of Justinian] which is as follows: -- Marriage is the union of the male and the female and "a partnership in the whole of life, a sharing of rights both sacred and secular" -- nuptiae sunt coniunctio maris et feminae, et consortium omnis vitae, divini et humani juris communicatio. The definition of Modestinus is very likely a traditional one. At any rate it brings out clearly the religious character of marriage which is so prominent in the earlier law.
From: Historical Introduction to the Roman Law, by Frederick Parker Walton (Edinburgh and London: William Green, 1912): chapter 19, "The Early Law of Marriage," p. 163. Walton provides these citations (here expanded): Justinian, Institutiones 1:9. Justinian, Digesta 23.2.1. He has borrowed the translation from: Studies in History and Jurisprudence, by James Bryce (New York: Oxford University Press, American Branch, 1901): p. 400. <Not examined>

Quotation from Edward Westermarck Illustrating "Marriage"
Marriage, as a term for a social institution, may be defined as a relation of one or more men to one or more women which is recognized by custom or law and involves certain rights and duties both in the case of the parties entering the union and in the case of the children born of it. These rights and duties vary among different peoples, but there must of course be something that they have in common. Marriage always implies the right of sexual intercourse: society holds such intercourse allowable in the case of husband and wife, and, generally speaking, even regards it as their duty to gratify in some measure the other partner's desire. But at the same time marriage is an economic institution, which may in various ways affect the proprietary rights of the parties... It is, finally, necessary that the union, to be recognized as a marriage, should be concluded in accordance with the rules laid down by custom or law, whatever these rules may be.
From the article: "Marriage," [signed] E.W. [i.e. Edward Westermarck], in: Encyclopaedia Sexualis: A Comprehensive Encyclopaedia-Dictionary of the Sexual Sciences, edited by Victor Robinson (New York: Dingwall-Rock, in collaboration with Medical Review of Reviews, 1936): pp. 507-542, specifically p. 507.

Merriam-Webster Adds a Same-Sex Definition of "Marriage"
the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage <same-sex ~>
From: Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed. Springfield, Mass: Merriam-Webster, 2003): p. 761, s.v. "marriage" 1a(2). Angle brackets theirs.

marriage à la mode:

Marriage (q.v.) "per the fashion," that is, fashionable marriage.

Comments: The "à la mode" part is French. The French term in full is "mariage à la mode." The Italian form of the term is "matrimoni alla moda."

The "fashion" may be that of high society or of culture at large; or it may refer to progressive marriage of the sort that entails creative solutions to sexual problems, such as occurred within certain literary circles in England between 1910 and 1939 (to give a nod to Katie Roiphe's quite specific application of the term in a recent book).

In 1673, John Dryden published a play called Marriage a-la-Mode, and since then many titles have included the term or some close variant thereof, most notably a series of paintings from 1743-1745 by William Hogarth (now in the National Gallery, London); books by Mrs. Humphry Ward (Daphne, 1909), Arthur S. May (1925), and Vida Hurst (1929); and a short story by Katherine Mansfield (first published in The Sphere, December 31, 1921).

References
Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Marriages, [by] Katie Roiphe (New York, N.Y.: Dial Press, 2008): especially pp. 1-2.
Marriage a-la-Mode. A Comedy. As It Is Acted at the Theatre-Royal, written by John Dryden (London: Printed by T[homas]. N[ewcomb]. for Henry Herringman, 1673).

See also progressive marriage.

x French terms

x Italian terms.

x mariage à la mode

x matrimoni alla moda.

marriage bed:

1. A euphemism for conjugal sexual relations.

2. The bed shared by individuals who are married to each other, especially for sexual relations.

See also bedding, wedbed.

marriage blues:

See marital blues.

marriage broker:

A person who, for a fee, acts as an agent for the purpose of arranging a marital union.

See also affiance, affy, go-between, love-broker, matchmaker, proxenete, shadkahn.

x broker.

marriage by capture:

See capture marriage.

marriage by contract:

Marriage (q.v.) that is made by agreement, typically a witnessed written agreement, on the authority of the parties or their families. In some times and places, such marriages are recognized under civil law.

Contrast civil marriage (q.v.), ecclesiastical marriage (q.v.). See also broomstick-marriage, contract marriage, common law marriage.

marriage by declaration:

A marriage (q.v.) that is formed by the parties themselves, and which becomes legally and retroactively recognized upon declaration of the parties according to terms laid down by law.

See also contract marriage.

marriage by exchange:

Receiving a wife in exchange for a kinswoman, such as a daughter or sister.

See also marriage.

marriage by inclination:

Marriage (q.v.) in which the spouses have freely selected one another according to their own feelings.

See also choice of one's heart, free marriage, love marriage, love-match, marriage of inclination., marry for love, romantic marriage.

 

marriage by purchase:

Acquiring a spouse by payment.

Contrast free marriage (q.v.). See also brideprice, divorce-by-purchase, wife-purchase.

 

marriage by service:

Working for a family for a specified time in order to obtain a spouse, typically a bride, from that family.

Contrast beena marriage (q.v.). See also marriage.

marriage ceremony:

A formal process for entry into marriage (q.v.), normally a social process for public entry. In North America, that process is generally either civil (q.v.) or a combination of civil and ecclesiastical (q.v.).

See also anti-wedding, ceremonial marriage, legally married, marriage in jest, solemnization, renew vows, wedding.

marriage cohort:

A defined group of people married for the first time within a specified period and designated a unit for purposes of research.

See also assortive mating.

x cohort.

x statistics.

marriage contract:

The agreement by which individuals become spouses of one another.

marriage counseling:

See marital counseling.

marriage debt:

Conjugal rights, especially with regard to sexual relations.

See also conjugal rights, consortium.

x debt of marriage.

Quotation from Geoffrey Chaucer Illustrating "Dette"
Why sholde men elles in hir bokes sette, That man shal yelde to his wyf hir dette? Now wher-with sholde he make his payement, If he ne used his sely instrument? Than were they maad up-on a creature, To purge uryne, and to eek engendrure.... In wyfhode I wol use myn instrument As frely as my maker hath it sent. If I be daungerous, god yeve me sorwe! Myn housbond shal it have bothe eve and morwe, Whan that him list com forth and paye his dette. As housbond I wol have, I nil nat lette, Which shal be bothe my dettour and my thral, and have his tribulacioun with-al Up-on his flessh, whyl that I am his wyf. I have the power duringe al my lyf Up-on his propre body, and noght he.
From: Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, "The Wife of Bath's Tale," prologue, lines 128-134, 149-159, in this edition: The Canterbury Tales, [by] Geoffrey Chaucer; from the text of W. W. Skeat; with a note on the language and metre and a glossary (New York: Avenenl Books; distributed by Crown Publishers, 1985; in series: Oxford World's Classics): pp. 294-295. First published in The World's Classics in 1906.
Quotation from the Burton Raffel Translation of Geoffrey Chaucer Illustrating "Marriage Debt"
Why else should wise men write in their holy texts That a man is bound to pay his marriage debt To his wife? How could he possibly make that payment If he never used his God-given implement? God gave his creatures these tools for urine excretion, And also for making new lives in God's creation.... When I'm a wife, I'll use his gifts to me As he [God] has given them, all generously. If I am ever reluctant, God send me sorrow! My husband will have it at night, and in the morning, Whenever he wishes to come and pay his debt. And I want a husband, the youngest one I can get, And he will owe me my debt, and serve me, too, For I will make my pound of his flesh a duty He must fulfill, as long as I'm his wife. His body owes me this, for the rest of my life, And nothing can interfere or ever deprive me.
As translated in: The Canterbury Tales, [by] Geoffrey Chaucer; a new unabridged translation by Burton Raffel; introduction by John Miles Foley (New York: Modern Library, 2008): pp. 162-163.

marriage fraud:

Deceptive use of a wedding or marital union in order to acquire a benefit.

Contrast bona fide marriage (q.v.). See also bigamy, faux wedding, immigration marriage fraud, klepsigamy, shadow husband, shadow wife, sham marriage.

marriagefree:

1. Without having succumbed to the institution of marriage, typically said of an individual.

2. Having broken away from the institution of marriage and now not married, typically said of an individual.

3. Characterized by the non-recognition of institutionalized marriage, said, for example, of an environment or community.

See also agamy, divorced, marital status, marriage, misogamy, never married, nonogamy, single, unattached, unmarried, widowed.

marriage gap:

The difference between the number of men seeking marriage and the number of women seeking marriage, relative to certain criteria such as proximity and age range, especially where monogamy-only is the social expectation.

See also assortive mating, availability index, marital opportunity ratio, marriage gap, marriage squeeze, mating gradient, propinquity factor, spanandry, spaneria, spanogyny.

x statistics.

marriage gradient:

See mating gradient.

marriage: hers and his:

See his and her marriages.

marriage in jest:

The immediate result of going through a legally recognized marriage ceremony (q.v.) without each party consenting to and intending to initiate an actual marriage (q.v.). Typically annulment (q.v.) is the remedy.

See also bloss, blowen, faux wedding, jactitation of marriage, mock wedding, shadow husband, shadow wife, sham marriage, spoffskins, shotgun wedding.

marriage in the resurrection:

See "neither marry, nor are given in marriage."

marriage in two steps:

See two-step marriage.

marriage-is-forever myth:

1. The notion that once married divorce cannot happen; the delusion that a marital union cannot come to an end while the spouses still live, especially such a delusion that affects one's actions and attitudes, for instance, how hard one works at a marriage, how one functions in a marital crisis, or the letting-go process before and after a divorce.

2. The idea that a marital union lasts beyond the deaths of the spouses.

Comment: Regarding the first sense, a distinction should be made between the myth and the ethical idea that marriage should continue till the death of a spouse. However, some might argue that the ethical injunction is, in many cases, unrealistic and that it therefore both perpetuates the myth and itself bears a mythic dimension.

Regarding the second sense, the locus classicus that forms the basis for much discussion is Matthew 22:30 = Mark 12:25 = Luke 20:34-36. For discussion, see under "neither marry, nor are given in marriage."

See also dead love, indissolubility doctrine, love-devouring, "one flesh," privilegium Paulinum, sacramental marriage, suttee, undying love.

x Bible.

x foreverness of marriage myth.

x myths.

Quotation from Ruth Dickson Illustrating "'Marriage is Forever' Myth"
The "marriage is forever" myth has been unquestioningly accepted by generation after generation, despite all the evidence to the contrary, and because we've been taught that there's something nasty about divorce, we're riddled with guilt and a sense of failure whenever this very natural phenomenon occurs.
From: Married Men Make the Best Lovers, by Ruth Dickson (Los Angeles, Calif: Sherbourne Press, c1967): p. 99.

marriage license:

Written permission granted by public authority for two people to marry. Typically it is addressed to a person authorized to solemnize marriages and is a prerequisite for the legal solemnization (q.v.) of a marriage (q.v.).

See also civil marriage, legally married, separation of marriage and state, statism.

marriage market:

The totality of people among whom a future spouse might be found; the pool of people eligible to become one's spouse.

See also availability index, available, dating pool, eligible, marital opportunity ratio, marriage minded, poach, shop around.

x market.

marriage material:

A person eligible or suitable to take on spousal duties.

See also bachelor, bachelorette, husband material, marrying kind, single, wife material.

x material.

marriage minded:

1. Looking for a person to wed.

2. Inclined to view dates as prospective spouses.

3. Internally driven to become wedded.

See also anuptaphobia, azygophrenia, eligible, itchy ring finger, marriage market, marrying kind, single, unhappily single.

marriage of conscience:

A marriage (q.v.) that is contracted before a priest and witnesses but otherwise in secret, this for a serious reason, for instance, to avoid illegitimacy of offspring in circumstances where making the marriage known would be dangerous.

See also clandestine marriage, clandestine wedding, occult marriage, secret marriage, shtille khuppeh.

marriage of convenience:

A marriage (q.v.) in which one or both partners either have united or remain united not for love but for advantage, or to avoid a disadvantage.

For a lexical example, see under "decoy."

See also convenient woman, crime of the heart, mariage de convenance, mariage de raison, marriage of reason, pragmatic love, romance-intolerant, slob love, trophy husband, trophy wife, utilitarian marriage.

x convenience.

marriage of convention:

See conventional marriage.

marriage of inclination:

Marriage (q.v.) in which the spouses have freely selected one another according to their own feelings.

See also choice of one's heart, free marriage, love marriage, love-match, mariage d'inclination, mariage de raison, marriage by inclination., marry for love, romantic marriage.

Quotation from Edward Bellamy Illustrating "Marriages ... of Inclination"
[266] "One result which must follow from the independence of women I can see for myself," I said. "There can be no marriages now except those of inclination." "That is a matter of course," replied Dr. Leete. "Think of a world in which there are nothing but matches of pure love! Ah me, Dr. Leete, [267] how far you are from being able to understand what an astonishing phenomenon such a world seems to a man of the nineteenth century!" "I can, however, to some extent, imagine it," replied the doctor. "But the fact you celebrate, that there are nothing but love matches, means even more, perhaps, than you probably at first realize. It means that for the first time in human history the principle of sexual selection, with its tendency to preserve and transmit the better types of the race, and let the inferior types drop out, has unhindered operation..."
From the utopian novel: Looking Backward, 2000-1887, by Edward Bellamy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., c1926; in: The Riverside Library): chapter 25, pp. 266-267. Originally published, Boston: Ticknor, 1888.

 

marriage offer:

See offer of marriage.

marriage of minds and bodies:

See true marriage of minds and bodies.

marriage of punishment:

See punishment through marriage.

marriage of reason:

A marriage (q.v.) that results not from romantic passion but from consideration of such things as alliances, personal benefits, and compatibility of temperaments; a marital union that results from a pragmatic evaluation.

Contrast love marriage (q.v.). See also mariage de convenance, mariage de raison, marriage, marriage of convenience, planned marriage, pragmatic love, romance-intolerant, utilitarian marriage.

marriage of true minds:

An ongoing mental communing of individuals who are sincere (or constant) in their deep affection for one another; ordinarily an allusion to Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 (which is quoted in full below).

Comments: Evidently Shakespeare used "The Form of Solemnization of Matrimony" in The Book of Common Prayer (BCP) as a foil for the message of his Sonnet. The BCP has this instruction:

"At which day of Marriage, if any man do allege and declare any impediment, why they may not be coupled together in Matrimony, by God's law, or the laws of this Realm; and will be bound, and sufficient sureties with him, to the parties; or else put in a caution ... to prove his allegation: then the solemnization must be deferred, until such time as the truth be tried."

"Marriage," "impediment," "prove," "truth" -- all have their echoes in the Sonnet. However, the marriage of which Shakespeare speaks is of minds, not necessarily of bodies; and thus the sense of all of these echoes is recast:

• Marriage is an intimate communion, an ongoing conversation between people drawn to each other, to continue hopefully for the remainder of one's life.
• An impediment is any pretext that would prevent or hinder such communing, any obstruction that can be overcome. Legal impediments -- adultery, incest, homosexuality, and such -- are, presumably, irrelevant here.
• Proving is not a matter of legality but of experience or reason.
• And the truth of the "true mindes" is a constancy of mental orientation to each other, an unswervingness, a steadfastness whatever ravages time may bring. Yet other senses of "true" are also evoked: honest, sincere, loyal, operating at a fundamental level, right and proper for each other. Furthermore, unless the argument of the Sonnet is read as the elaboration of a tautology, "constant minds are constant," it would seem that one of these other senses is needed, to say, for instance, "that sincere minds are constant."

See also affinity, connaturality, husband in truth, marriage, mystic betrothal, mystic marriage, noeclexis, soul mate, spiritual connection, spiritual marriage, true, true love, true marriage of minds and bodies, union of hearts, wife in truth.

Quotation from William Shakespeare Illustrating "Marriage of True Mindes"
LEt me not to the marriage of true mindes Admit impediments, loue is not loue Which alters when it alteration findes, Or bends with the remouer to remoue: O no, it is an euer fixed marke That lookes on tempests and is neuer shaken; It is the star to euery wandring barke, Whose worths vnknowne, although his higth be taken. Lou's not Times foole, though rosie lips and cheeks Within his bending sickles compasse come, Loue alters not with his breefe houres and weekes, But beares it out euen to the edge of doome: If this be error and vpon me proued, I neuer writ, nor no man euer loued.
Sonnet 116, in: Shake-speares Sonnets ... (London: By G. Eld for T.T. and are to be solde by Iohn Wright ..., 1609). Helen Vendler suggests that this Sonnet should be read not as a definition of true love but as a rebuttal, which encapsulates the argument it refutes, namely that as people alter so one's love alters. See: The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets, [by] Helen Vendler (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1997): p. 488.

marriage per verba de futuro:

See sponsalia per verba de futuro.

marriage per verba de praesenti:

See sponsalia per verba de praesenti.

marriage portion:

1. That money or property which a bride brings to her husband at their marriage (q.v.).

2. That money or property which a man settles on his wife at their marriage.

3. That part of a deceased husband's estate which properly goes to his widow, in case he has not endowed her.

Comment: Often expressed simply as "portion," as in the vicious use of the term in the quotation below.

See also brideprice, dos, dowager, dowry, frankmarriage.

x portion.

Quotation from Susan Ferrier Illustrating "Portion"
[Lady Audley speaking to her son, Edmund] "Go, then -- go, marry her; but first hear me swear, solemnly swear!" -- and she raised her hands and eyes to heaven -- "that my malediction shall be your portion! ..."
From: Marriage, [by] Susan Ferrier; with a new introduction by Rosemary Ashton (New York, N.Y.: Penguin Books; [London]: Virago Press, 1986): chapter 14, p. 92. Originally published anonymously: Edinburgh: Wm. Blackwood, 1818.

marriage proposal:

See proposal.

marriage reconstituted:

See reconstituted marriage.

marriage retreat:

A gathering of married couples, typically lasting a few days, in a setting where they can escape from the daily grind of life and focus on, renew, and develop their marital relationships with the aid of marriage-focused lectures and seminars conducted by church leaders, marriage counselors, or other experts.

Comment: Besides "retreat," other terms are sometimes used such as "seminar" or "workshop," the differences in nuance generally being according to setting and type of interaction expected.

Persons in or interested in alternative lovestyles will typically use the same terms, but with a different modifier -- for example, instead of "marriage retreat," "poly retreat" -- or else they will call their gatherings conventions, conferences, or cons (often as a suffix), thus, for example, Alt.Polycon, an annual conference for the readers of the USENET newsgroup alt.polyamory and their partners and friends.

marriage sabbatical:

Time away from one's marital partner(s) and family, typically on the order of a few months, especially to pursue a goal.

See also break, grass-widow, grass-widower, holiday from marriage, hundred-mile rule, pi supuhui, separate vacations, vacation from marriage.

x sabbatical from marriage.

marriage shock:

Surprise and distress upon discovering from personal experience, especially for the first time, difficulties of spousehood; adjustment difficulty as a result of becoming married; said especially of some women upon their undertaking of a wifely role in a traditional mold.

See also cagamosis, consummation, desperate, disenchantment, honeymoon assault, love-found-solves-all myth, marital blues, marriage-trap, misérables, "shock" theory of marriage, unhappily married.

marriage solves all:

See love-found-solves-all myth.

marriage squeeze:

The difficulty experienced by a percentage of the males or females of a certain population in finding marital partners, insofar as that difficulty is due to an imbalance in the number of men seeking marriage and the number of women seeking marriage, especially where monogamy-only is the social expectation.

See also assortive mating, availability index, marital opportunity ratio, marriage gap, mating gradient, propinquity factor, spanandry, spaneria, spanogyny.

x statistics.

marriage-trap:

Marriage (q.v.) insofar as it results in difficult-to-escape unhappiness.

See also cagamosis, loveless marriage, marital blues, marriage shock, misérables, slob love, unhappily married.

Quotation from Victor Robinson Illustrating "Marriage-Trap"
To make the marriage-trap easy of access and difficult of escape is one of man's crowning stupidities.
From the "Editorial Introduction," [signed] Victor Robinson, to: Encyclopaedia Sexualis: A Comprehensive Encyclopaedia-Dictionary of the Sexual Sciences, edited by Victor Robinson (New York: Dingwall-Rock, in collaboration with Medical Review of Reviews, 1936): p. xv.

marriage with a deceased wife's sister:

See deceased wife's sister question.

married:

1. Used adjectivally, as in "a married person":

• Mated -- some might say blessed, others might say encumbered -- with one or more spouses.
• Subject to restrictions, especially sexual restrictions, and also rights and privileges associated with being a husband or a wife.
• Profoundly bonded.
  

2. Used substantively, as in "the married": Those who are in the marital state; those who have a spouse.

Comment: Abbreviated M.

In a context where sexual exclusivity (q.v.) is the expectation, the word "married" sometimes connotes unavailability for a love relationship apart from the marriage, unless the word is qualified. So phrases like "unhappily married" and "married but separated" sometimes connote availability.

See also attached, been and done it, bundle man, cash and carried, coverture, cut and carried, dot and carried, ever-married, gone and done it, happily married, hitched, legally married, M, marital status, marriage, married lover, mate, misérables, more "married" than, never married, never-married, out of circulation, seriously married, sexually exclusive, spouse, spousehood, traditional monogamy, unmarried, wived, yoked, zeoman.

Quotation from Ruth Dickson Illustrating "Married"
"My wife is married ... I'm not!"
From: Married Men Make the Best Lovers, by Ruth Dickson (Los Angeles, Calif: Sherbourne Press, c1967): p. 133. The elision is the author's.

Quotation from Rita Mae Brown Illustrating "Married"
[Leroy] "Well hell, Molly, what's being married?" [Molly Bolt] "It's a piece of paper, that's all I can figure. Some people don't even have to stand in front of a preacher, so it ain't religion. You can go on down to the courthouse and sign up like Uncle Ep signed up for the Marine Corps. Then you hear words said over you and you both sign this piece of paper and you're married."
[Leota Bisland] "I like you best, but I still think girls can't get married [to each other]." [Molly Bolt] "Look, if we want to get married, we can get married. It doesn't matter what anybody says..."
From the novel: Rubyfruit Jungle, by Rita Mae Brown (Fifteenth anniversary ed. Toronto; New York: Bantam Books, 1988): chapter 4, p. 28 and chapter 5, p. 38. Originally published: Plainfield, Vt.: Daughters, Inc., 1973.

married all over:

1. Taking one's spouse for granted and thus letting one's appearance deteriorate; out of shape and/or dumpy looking as a result of no longer having to attract potential mates, being already mated.

2. Devoted to one's marriage and thus sexually inaccessible to anyone but one's spouse.

See also attraction, interfacial marriage, plain Jane; sexual exclusivity.

married at Finglesham Church:

To have engaged in casual sex together.

Comment: "There is no church at Finglesham; but a chalk-pit celebrated for casual amours; of which kind of rencounters the saying is us'd." -- The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, compiled by William George Smith (1935): p. 497.

See also affair, amour, Boston marriage, casual sex, dalliance, Fleet marriage, go to Gretna Green, go to Scotland, gretna green wedding, intrigue, married but not churched, marry over the broomstick.

x Finglesham Church.

married but looking:

A person who is seeking a date or a lover, even though he or she already has a spouse.

Comment: Abbreviated mbl.

This designation is sometimes used in personal ads. It might indicate any number of possibilities, for instance that the person is unhappily married and looking to change spouses, or that the person is in an open marriage, or that the person is polygamous or polyamorous, or that the person is simply looking for an additional social and/or sexual outlet.

Often the term implies an ironic mix of the straightforward and the clandestine.

See also alternative dating, mbl.

 

married but not churched:

1. Mated without having followed proper social procedure.

2. Legally wedded but without the involvement of ecclesiastical institutions.

3. Wedded, perhaps even in a church, but not currently involved with a religious congregation, at least not a Christian one.

Comment: The phrase assumes the dominance of Christianity in the given culture or subculture.

See also broomstick-marriage, common-law marriage, ecclesiastical marriage, holy matrimony, holy wedlock, jump over the broomstick, jump the besom, living together, married at Finglesham Church, married on the carpet and the banns up the chimney, marry over the broomstick.

married contrary to discipline (M.C.D.):

Wed, against Quaker rules, to a non-Quaker.

See also beloved stranger, interethnic marriage, intermarriage, interpretative adultery, interreligious marriage, marry out of meeting, M.C.D., mixed marriage, "unequally yoked."

Quotation from Mary Bywater Cross Illustrating "Married Contrary to Discipline"
Mary Carpenter Pickering was from an affluent Quaker family in Belmont County, Ohio.... [John Bruce] Bell was a Scotch Presbyterian... According to family records, Mary and John were married in September 1861, M.C.D., meaning "married contrary to discipline," referring to their different religious backgrounds.
From: Treasures in the Trunk: Quilts of the Oregon Trail, [by] Mary Bywater Cross (Nashville, Tenn.: Routledge Hill Press, c1993): p. 124.

married couple:

Two who have entered into a marital union with each other, especially a monogamous union.

See also couple, duet for life, marriage.

married life:

The way that a husband and wife are in relationship to each other over the course of their time together, and all that attends their relationship, from the mundane aspects of domesticity to sexuality to the maritally related principles of conduct by which they live.

Comment: This term is sometimes preferred to "marriage" in order to avoid the ambiguities of the latter term, for instance, does "the marriage" refer to the wedding or to wedded life?

See also conjugal love, conjugal rights, marital love, marriage, wedded life.

married on the carpet and the banns up the chimney:

Mated without having followed proper social procedure.

See also bann, broomstick-marriage, common-law marriage, jump over the broomstick, jump the besom, living together, married but not churched, marry over the broomstick.

x banns up the chimney.

married lover (M.L.):

A person who is having an extramarital affair, relative to the person he or she is having the affair with.

Comment: The term is sometimes reserved for a man and used in company with a different term for a female partner in the affair, such as "his mistress" or "the other woman."

See also lover, married, M.L.

marry:

1. To take a spouse or to take each other as spouses.

2. To have someone in one's family take a spouse.

3. To officiate the wedding of.

Comments: Also commonly expressed as "to get married."

Nowadays in the West, generally it is said that a man and a woman marry each other. He marries her, she marries him. However, it used to be said instead and in some circles still is said that he marries her, but she is given in marriage or is married off to him. Note the example under "give in marriage."

See also annex, bestow in marriage, buckle, cleave, commit marriage, conjoin, couple, despouse, fit double clews, join, jump off the dock, jump over the broomstick, jump the besom, lead to the altar, marriage, marry ..., mate, outmarry, settle down, splice, take, take the giggle-trot, take the plunge, tie the knot, tie up, unite, urge to merge, wed.

Quotation from Jane Austen Illustrating "Marrying"
The loss of her daughter [Lydia] made Mrs Bennet very dull for several days. 'I often think,' said she, 'that there is nothing so bad as parting with one's friends. One seems so forlorn without them.' 'This is the consequence you see, Madam, of marrying a daughter,' said Elizabeth [Bennet]. 'It must make you better satisfied that your other four are single.' 'It is no such thing. Lydia does not leave me because she is married; but only because her husband's regiment happens to be so far off...'
From the novel: Pride and Prejudice, [by] Jane Austen (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, c2003): chapter 53, pp. 409-410. Originally published: Pride and Prejudice: A Novel ..., by the author of "Sense and Sensibility" (London: T. Egerton, 1813).

marry down:

Taking a spouse who comes from a lower social stratum than one does oneself.

Contrast marrying up (q.v.). See also class marriage, dating down, folly, hypogamy, left-handed marriage, marry, mating gradient, mésalliance, settle for.

marry for love:

1. To have as one's principal motivation for entering into a conjugal union with a particular person a deep affection for and bond with that person.

2. On the part of a couple, to have as the principle motivation for each to enter into a conjugal union with the other a deep affection for and bond with that person.

Contrast marry for money (q.v.), marry for politics (q.v.), and marry out of duty (q.v.). See also love, love marriage, love-match, marriage by inclination, marriage of inclination, marry, mate selection, romantic marriage.

marry for money:

To have as one's principal motivation for entering into a conjugal union with a particular person that person's wealth, especially the prospect of enjoying, sharing, or possessing it or the prospect of not having to dilute one's own wealth because of the other's comparable wealth.

Contrast especially marry for love (q.v.). See also gold digger, high maintenance, hypergamy, marry, marry into dough, marry out of duty, marry up, marry well, mate selection, mating gradient, matrimonial adventurer, order of Saint Beelzebub, rich man/biker paradox, slob love, state-sanctioned prostitution, trade up, trophy husband, trophy wife, widowhunter.

Quotation from Jane Austen Illustrating "Married for Money"
'Mr [William] Elliot,' replied Mrs Smith, 'at that period of his life, had one object in view: to make his fortune, and by a rather quicker process than the law. He was determined to make it by marriage...' [Three paragraphs snipped] [Anne Elliot]: '... Mr Elliot married, then, completely for money? The circumstances, probably, which first opened your eyes to his character.' Mrs Smith hesitated a little here. 'Oh! those things are too common. When one lives in the world, a man or woman's marrying for money is too common to strike one as it ought. I was very young, and associated only with the young, and we were a thoughtless, gay set, without any strict rules of conduct. We lived for enjoyment. I think differently now; time and sickness and sorrow have given me other notions; but at that period I must own I saw nothing reprehensible in what Mr Elliot was doing. "To do the best for himself", passed as a duty.' 'But was not she a very low woman?' 'Yes; which I objected to, but he would not regard. Money, money, was all that he wanted..."
From the novel: Persuasion, [by] Jane Austen (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, c2004): chapter 21, pp. 241-242. Originally published posthumously in: Northanger Abbey; and Persuasion, by the author of "Pride and Prejudice," "Mansfield-Park," &c.; with a biographical notice of the author [by her brother, Henry Austen] (London: John Murray, 1818).

Quotation from Susan Ferrier Illustrating "Married Her for Her Money"
[Lady Maclaughlan] "... Your mother was an heiress, your father married her for her money, and she married him to be a countess, and so that's the history of their marriage -- humph."
From: Marriage, [by] Susan Ferrier; with a new introduction by Rosemary Ashton (New York, N.Y.: Penguin Books; [London]: Virago Press, 1986): chapter 9, p. 48. Originally published anonymously: Edinburgh: Wm. Blackwood, 1818.

marry for politics:

To have as one's principal motivation for entering into a conjugal union with a particular person the preservation or expansion of power, typically marriage being a means of cementing an alliance to that end.

Contrast especially marry for love (q.v.). See also bedroom politics, Lady Macbeth syndrome, marry, marry out of duty, political marriage, power couple.

x politics.

Quotation from Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson Illustrating "Married for Politics"
[Regarding Duke Paulus Atreides and his wife, Helena] Now their marriage was strictly political. "I married for politics in the first place, lad," he had said. "Never should have tried to make it otherwise. At our station, marriage is a tool. Don't muck everything up by trying to throw love into the mix."
From the science fiction novel: Dune. House Atreides, [by] Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson (New York: Bantam Books, 1999): p. 23 (hardcover edition); p. 27 (mass paperback edition, 2000).

marrying kind:

Type of person, especially a single person, who finds marriage suitable; the sort of person who prefers to have a spouse, who prefers to leave singlehood behind.

See also available, eligible, in circulation, itchy ring finger, marriage material, marriage minded, not the marrying kind, unhappily single.

marry into dough:

To marry (q.v.) a wealthy person or a person who is a member of a wealthy family.

See also gold digger, marry for money.

marry off:

To have someone in one's family take a spouse, especially if one or more family members have been actively engaged either in bringing that about or in helping it to come to pass.

Comment: Sometimes only the word "marry" is used for this sense.

See also give away in marriage, marry.

Quotation from Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson Illustrating "Married Off"
... Helena's family had salvaged some of its respectability through an arranged marital alliance with the Atreides; several of her sisters had been married off to other Houses.
From the science fiction novel: Dune. House Atreides, [by] Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson (New York: Bantam Books, 1999): p. 23 (hardcover edition); p. 26 (mass paperback edition, 2000).

marry out:

See marry out of meeting.

marry out of duty:

1. To have as one's principal motivation for entering into conjugal union with a particular person a sense of obligation, for example, to obey one's parents, to cement an alliance, to enhance the standing of one's family, or to uphold a promise.

2. To have as one's principal motivation for entering into any conjugal union at all a sense of obligation, for example, to obey the first divine command to humankind ("Be fruitful and multiply," Genesis 1:28), to produce an heir, or to appease a parent.

Contrast especially the first sense with marry for love (q.v.). See also arranged marriage, breach of promise, marry, marry for money, marry for politics, political marriage.

marry out of meeting, or marry out:

As a Quaker or Amish person, to marry someone not of one's sect.

Comment: The practice has sometimes been viewed with horror.

See also beloved stranger, interfaith marriage, intermarriage, interreligious marriage, married contrary to discipline, marry, mixed marriage, "unequally yoked."

x marry out.

marry over the broomstick:

To jump over the broomstick, that is, to marry informally.

See also besom wedding, broomstick-marriage, handfasting, jump over the broomstick (especially the comment), jump the besom, married at Finglesham Church, married but not churched, married on the carpet and the banns up the chimney, marry.

marry up:

To take a spouse who comes from a higher social stratum than one does oneself.

Contrast marry down (q.v.). See also bigger, better deal; Cinderella story; class marriage; dating up; gold digger; hypergamy; marry; marry for money; marry well; mating gradient; matrimonial adventurer; order of Saint Beelzebub; trade up.

marry well:

1. To enter into conjugal union with someone who is financially better off than one's parent or parents.

2. To enter into a marriage where the odds are good that one will be free of serious or chronic financial worry.

Comment: The term has most often been used for women; and the parent, in the first sense, has generally meant the father.

See also gold digger, hypergamy, marry, marry for money, marry up, order of Saint Beelzebub, matrimonial adventurer, trade up.

Quotation from Jane Austen Illustrating "Marrying Well"
[Elizabeth Bennet]: '... Wickham will never marry a woman without some money. He cannot afford it. And what claims has Lydia [Bennet], what attractions has she beyond youth, health, and good humour, that could make him for her sake, forgo every chance of benefiting himself by marrying well? ...'
From the novel: Pride and Prejudice, [by] Jane Austen (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, c2003): chapter 47, p. 351. Originally published: Pride and Prejudice: A Novel ..., by the author of "Sense and Sensibility" (London: T. Egerton, 1813).

martymachlia:

1. "Witnesses to [one's] lewdness"; desire that one's sexual activities be observed.

2. Arousal from being observed during sexual activity.

See also ask-and-tell eroticism, candaulism, dogging, group sex, Mandingo party, mixoscopia, troilism, watching.

martyred spouse:

1. A husband or a wife who sacrifices his or her own interests for the sake of the other spouse(s) or who suffers in a marriage because of the dynamics of that marriage or whose personality is effaced by his or her marriage.

2. A husband or a wife for whom marriage constitutes a net loss with regard to his or her sense of fulfillment in life.

See also abuse, martyr of the marriage system, misérables, spouse, unhappily married.

x syndromes.

martyr of the marriage system:

Someone rendered lonely or otherwise unhappy as a result of social conventions regarding marriage (q.v.).

See also martyred spouse.

Quotation from William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) Illustrating "Martyrs of the ... Marriage System"
"And here's your famous theory of poor marriages!" Essex Temple cries ... "How do you know that I don't want to marry myself? How do you dare sneer at my poor sister? What are we but martyrs of the reckless marriage system which Mr. Snob, forsooth, chooses to advocate?"
From: The Book of Snobs, [by] William Makepeace Thackeray (Köln: Könemann, 1999): chapter 36, p. 176. "First appeared (anonymously) in weekly installments in Punch from 28 February 1846 to 27 February under the title 'The Snobs of England'.... The Book of Snobs was published in 1848 ..." -- "Notes," p. 221.

mary jane:

1. A girlfriend, especially a marine's girlfriend.

2. A woman's genital region. (Compare "Aunt Mary.")

3. Capitalized, the tradmark name for a type of sandal worn by girls.

See also betty, Dear Jane letter, girlfriend, jelly, Lady Jane, plain Jane.

x Jane.

Mary Sue story:

A fictional tale featuring a character who is too good to be true and who thus represents an ideal of wishful thinking, especially a tale in which such a character exists in sexual tension with or has a romantic or sexual relationship with a character from an already established fictional universe.

Comments: After the main character in a parody of such stories: "A Trekkie's Tale," by Paula Smith, in: Menagerie; #2 (December 1973): 6. <Unexamined>

The term "Mary Sue" may apply to either a female or a male character, although male characters fitting the bill are often given instead a rhyming name, such as Larry Stu.

See also discourse of desire, genicon, ideal, jeune premier, jeune première, love story, shipper.

x stories.

masculine wiles:

A man's use of his male charms, or of supplements to them, in order to attract and hold onto a person of a complementary sexual orientation or otherwise in order to get his own way.

See also attraction, feminine wiles, flirtation, make-want.

x wiles.

mashed:

See mashy.

mashed on:

In love with.

See also captivated, enamored, head over heels in love, in love, mashy.

masher:

1. A man who excites attention from women; a lady-killer (q.v.).

2. A male lover.

3. A flirtatious dandy; a man who makes passes at women.

See also agapet, bimbo, Casanova, crumpet man, Don Juan, flirt, gallant, gay spark, general lover, God's gift to women, heartthrob, jock, ladies' man, lover, lustworthy, make-out artist, multimitus, pick up artist, rake, roué, squish, satyr, skirt-chaser, smellsmock, stud, vert galant, wolf, womanizer.

mash note or mash-note:

Love letter (q.v.).

mashy:

Feeling smitten by love; in love; amorous.

See also besotted, in love, love-passion, mashed on, torchy.

x mashed.

master:

In the context of marriage, the husband in relation to his wife (or wives), insofar as he is conceived of, whether seriously or jocularly, as having control over her (or them).

See also androcracy, "head of the wife," husband, husband worship, lord, maritodespotism, patriarchal marriage, worship one's spouse.

Quotations from Abigail and John Adams Illustrating "Master"
[Abigail Adams to, her husband, John Adams, Braintree, Massachusetts, March 31, 1776] ... and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If perticular [sic] care and attention is not paid to the Laidies [sic] we are determined to foment a Rebelion [sic], and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation. That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend. Why then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity. Men of Sense in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your Sex. Regard us then as Beings placed by providence under your protection and in immitation [sic] of the Supreem [sic] Being make use of that power only for our happiness.
[John to Abigail, April 14, 1776] ... We know better than to repeal our Masculine systems. Altho they are in full Force, you know they are little more than Theory. We dare not exert our Power in its full Latitude. We are obliged to go fair, and softly, and in Practice you know We are the subjects. We have only the Name of Masters, and rather than give up this, which would compleatly [sic] subject Us to the Despotism of the Peticoat [sic], I hope General Washington, and all our brave Heroes would fight. I am sure every good Politician would plot, as long as he would against Despotism ...
[Abigail to John, Braintree, May 7, 1776] .... I can not say that I think you very generous to the Ladies, for whilst you are proclaiming peace and good will to Men, Emancipating all Nations, you insist upon retaining an absolute power over Wives. But you must remember that Arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken -- and notwithstanding all your wise Laws and Maxims we have it in our power not only to free ourselves but to subdue our Masters, and without voilence [sic] throw both your natural and legal authority at our feet ...
From: The Book of Abigail and John: Selected Letters of the Adams Family, 1762-1784, edited and with an introduction by L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender and Mary-Jo Kline (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975): pp. 121, 123, 127.

master of (one's) domain:

A person who, from a certain point in time, is continuing to abstain from sexual activity, including masturbation, by dint of will.

Coinage: The American TV sitcom, "Seinfeld," Season 4, Episode 49 (or 51?), "The Contest," written by Larry David, directed by Tom Cherones (first aired, November 18, 1992).

See also abstinence, celibate.

matching hearts:

1. Lovers who belong together or would seem to because of the bond they have forged.

2. Lovers who complement each other well or who have comfortably adjusted themselves to complement each other well.

See also compatibility, good match, heart, lover, soul mate.

match made in heaven:

1. A union of soul mates.

2. An exceptionally happy union of (usually) two people.

Comment: Sometimes the phrase is used with the idea that two people were meant for each other even before they were conceived. Sometimes it is used instead simply to indicate their heaven-like happiness together. Often the emphasis is on the intangible aspects of the relationship -- compatibility of temperaments, attitudes, and so forth -- but not necessarily.

See also affinity, beau mariage, bliss, Celestial Marriage, compatibility, connaturality, eternal union, good match, happy marriage, ideal, intended, kinship, love-match, love of one's life, made for each other, Miss Right, Mister Right, Ms. Right, mystic betrothal, mystic marriage, "neither marry, nor are given in marriage," nomogamosis, one, one-and-only, one true love, perfect catch, shalom bayit, soul mate, spiritual connection, spiritual husband, spiritual marriage, spiritual wife, successful marriage, true love, Xanadu.

matchmaker, or match-maker:

1. A person who deliberately brings individuals together with the idea that if they meet they might marry.

2. A person who helps to arrange marriages.

See also affiance, affy, dating service, fix up, go-between, love-broker, marriage broker, municipal matchmaker, proxenete, shadkahn.

matchmaking:

1. Bringing individuals together with the idea that if they meet they might form a love relationship or even marry.

2. Helping to arrange marriages.

See also dating plan, good match, mail-order bride, mail-order husband, matchmaker, mate selection, municipal matchmaking. wink.

mate, as in "a mate":

1. A spouse.

2. A partner (q.v.) in a committed love relationship.

3. A lover (q.v.) with whom one feels a strong bond.

4. A person with whom one spends time or anticipates spending time.

For lexical examples, see below and under "run astray."

See also amari, bedmate, conjux, freemate, helpmate, keeper, lifemate, love interest, love mate, man in one's life, Net mate, provider, romantic interest, serial mate, sign mate, soul mate, win a mate, woman in one's life.

Quotation from D. H. Lawrence Illustrating "Mate"
She [Ursula Brangwen] had the potent, dark stream of her own blood, she had the glimmering core of fecundity, she had her mate, her complement, her sharer in fruition. So, she had all, everything.
From the novel: The Rainbow, by D. H. Lawrence (New York: B. W. Huebsch, c1915, 1921 printing): chapter 15, p. 424.

mate, as in "to mate":

1. To go through the process leading up to and including sexual intercourse; to copulate.

2. To find a sex partner (q.v.) for whatever duration.

3. To enter into a committed love relationship (q.v.).

4. To marry (q.v.).

See also breed, cleave, consort with, couple, epigamic, hitched, join, make love to, marriage, married, mating habits, mating rituals, sexuality, take, union, yoked.

mate guarding:

Keeping others of one's own sex from copulating with one to whom one wishes to have exclusive sexual access, especially when this is by instinct to better ensure the transmission of one's own genes by reproduction.

See also female-defense polygyny, intrasexual competition, jealousy, male-dominance polygyny, poach, resource-defense polygyny.

x guarding.

mate poacher:

One who engages in mate poaching (q.v.).

See also adulterer, adulteress, homewrecker, thief of love.

mate poaching:

Luring away, by design, another's partner in a love relationship, whether for a brief affair or a long-term relationship; stealing another's spouse or lover.

See also adultery, alienation of affections, couple-buster, homewrecker, mate poacher, poach, steal.

Quotation from David P. Scmitt and David M. Buss defining "Mate Poaching"
We define human mate poaching as behavior intended to attract someone who is already in a romantic relationship.
From: "Human Mate Poaching: Tactics and Temptations for Infiltrating Existing Mateships," [by] David P. Schmitt [and] David M. Buss. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology; v. 80, no. 6 (summer 2001): pp. 894–917, specifically p. 894.

mater:

Mother (q.v.).

materfamilias:

A woman who heads a household.

Contrast paterfamilias (q.v.). See also household, matriarchal family, matricentric family, mistress, mother-only family.

material:

See friendship material, husband material, lover material, marriage material, relationship material, wife material.

maternity:

1. Biological (genetic) motherhood.

2. Motherhood as a function within a family and in relation to particular children, inclusive of the panoply of associations with it.

Comment: The term is also used adjectivally, as in "maternity leave," in which case it commonly has reference to pregnancy, childbirth, and infant care.

Contrast paternity (q.v.). See also choice mom; maternity test; Mater semper certa est, pater est, quem nuptiae demonstrant; matriarchal; mother; mother of [my, your, his] child(ren); unwed mother.

maternity test:

Application of a scientific method, typically using DNA analysis, to determine who is or is not the genetic father of a particular child.

See also maternity, paternity test.

x DNA test.

x tests.

Mater semper certa est, pater est, quem nuptiae demonstrant (Latin):

"The mother is always known; the father is the one whom the marriage points out"; in other words, fatherhood, paternity, is established by marriage; that is, the legal presumption is that a child born to a married woman is a child of her husband, even if that is not actually the case.

Comment: A Roman dictum and legal saying.

See also duped dad, father, mother, mulier, out-of-wedlock, pater, paternity, salvator femininus, unwed father.

x Latin terms.

x Pater est quem nuptiae demonstrant.

mate sampling:

Engaging in sexual activity with a series of individuals as part of the process of finding a suitable long-term partner.

See also date around, dating plan, fish, mate selection, mating habits, mating rituals, nonmarital sex, play the field, put it about, sleep around, promiscuity, shop around.

mate selection:

1. Finding a partner for a marriage or long-term love relationship.

2. The process by which a person finds a partner for a marriage or long-term love relationship.

See also dating plan, dating service, geneclexis, inner beauty, ladder theory, long-term relationship, love relationship, marriage, marry for love, marry for money, matchmaking, mate sampling, mating habits, mating rituals, Metuchen theory, nearest donut theory, negative mate selection, noeclexis, planned marriage, propinquity factor, rich man/biker paradox, sexogamy, sexual imprinting, shop around, theory of complementary needs in mate-selection, white whale.

mate swapping:

The exchanging of marital or love relationship partners across marital or love relationship lines for recreational sex, with the consent of all involved.

Comment: The term "swapping" suggests to some that certain individuals have control, ownship, possession, and that other individuals are objects or possessions to be swapped. Consequently, although this term has been widely used in sociological studies, it is losing favor in some quarters. Partner sharing (q.v.), swinging, and being in the lifestyle (q.v.) are among the favored alternatives.

See also agapemone, doused lights, heart-swapping, house party, husband swapping, intermarital sex, key club, key party, pi supuhui, share (one's partner) with, spouse exchange, swing, swing club, switch club, wife swapping.

x mate-switching.

x partner swapping.

x spouse swapping.

x swap-mating.

x swapping.

mate-switching:

See mate swapping.

mate value:

The ways in which and degree to which a prospective sex partner would enhance or a sex partner does enhance the chances for genetic survival, that is, for having robust offspring, especially as unconsciously assessed, on the part of the one with or seeking a partner, by way of attractors.

Comment: Hypothetically as a result of human evolution, men tend to be attracted to women in a way that corresponds to fitness for child-bearing, and women tend to prefer as long-term partners men who would be good providers, although they sometimes prefer different genetic partners.

Patterns of sexual difference with respect to mate value may have a bearing on patterns of sexual difference with respect to what tends to evoke jealousy. For instance: Women may tend more than men to be jealous of physically attractive rivals, this often being a major criterion of the mate value of a female; and men may tend more than women to be jealous of rivals with a comparatively high social status, this often being a major criterion of the mate value of a male.

See also attraction, callipygian ideal, chemistry of love, genetic partner, jealousy, sperm wars, waist-to-hip ratio.

mating gradient:

The statistical tendency of women to mate with men of similar or higher social status and of men with women of similar or lower social status.

See also anuloma marriage, assortive mating, availability index, class marriage, dating down, dating up, gold digger, hypergamy, left-handed marriage, marital opportunity ratio, marriage gap, marriage squeeze, marry for money, marry down, marry up, mésalliance, order of the patched trousers, propinquity factor, trade up.

x marriage gradient.

x statistics.

mating habits:

Customs and practices, including instinctual behaviors, that commonly lead to copulation or a sexual relationship.

See also mate, mate sampling, mate selection, mating rituals, sexual relationship, sexways, traditional ways.

mating rituals:

Patterns of behavior common to a species or culture, or to members of one sex wtihin a species or culture, geared to the acquisition of a sex partner.

See also mate, mate sampling, mate selection, mating habits, sex partner, sexways.

matriarchal:

Of or pertaining to a matriarchal family (q.v.) or the headship thereof.

Contrast patriarchal (q.v.). See also maternity.

matriarchal family:

1. A family (q.v.) organized with the mother or senior mother as the formal and functional head, especially when this is according to custom.

2. A family that is ruled by a senior woman and organized according to matrilineal descent, especially when this is according to custom. Matrilocal residence (q.v.) is sometimes also an expected feature of a matriarchal family.

Contrast patriarchal family (q.v.). See also consanguine family, doll's house marriage, doll's house relationship, materfamilias, matricentric family.

matriarchalism:

1. Belief that in a social unit -- such as a state, business, or family -- a female should lead, except, perhaps, where no willing or qualified female is available or where that social unit is made up of men only.

2. Implementation of such a belief in practice.

Contrast patriarchalism (q.v.). See also double standard, feminism, matriarchal family.

matricentric family:

A two-generational family in which the mother is the key figure, the father's position being casual, temporary, or otherwise peripheral.

Contrast patricentric family (q.v.). See also family, materfamilias, matriarchal family, mother-only family.

matrilateral cross-cousin marriage:

Marriage between a sister's son and a brother's daughter, particularly when it is according to custom or social preference.

See also cross-cousin marriage, preferential marriage.

matrilocal residence:

In reference to the married, living in the wife's place of origin and with or near her mother, generally in accordance with custom.

See also ambilocal residence, amitalocal residence, avunculocal residence, bilocal residence, duolocal residence, matriarchal family, matripatrilocal residence, neolocal residence, patrilocal residence, unilocal residence, uxoribilocal residence, uxorilocal residence, uxoripatrilocal residence, virilocal residence, walk-in marriage.

matrimonial:

Of or relating to marriage.

See also bridal, conjugal, connubial, epithalamic, gamical, hymeneal, marital, nuptial, spousal.

matrimonial adventurer:

A person who uses marriage as a means to achieve greater wealth or a higher social position.

See also gold-digger, high maintenance, hypergamy, marry for money, marry up, marry well, mating gradient, order of Saint Beelzebub, sugar daddy, sugar mama, trade up.

Quotation from George Bernard Shaw Illustrating "Matrimonial Adventurer"
MRS HUSHABYE. Do you suppose you can bully me, you miserable little matrimonial adventuruer? ELLIE. Every woman who hasnt any money is a matrimonial adventurer. It's easy for you to talk: you have never known what it is to want money; and you can pick up men as if they were daisies. I am poor and respectable --
Heartbreak House: A Fantasia in the Russian Manner on English Themes (preface dated 1919), in: Six Plays, by Bernard Shaw, with prefaces (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1948): Act 2, p. 545. The "MRS" and the "hasnt" are as shown.

matrimonialism:

The position that monogamous marriage is the the only proper form of marriage.

See also compulsory monogamy, emotional fidelity, exclusivity, family values, monogamism, monogamy-centrist, one-and-only, "one flesh," one-wife system, traditional monogamy, traditional morality.

Quotation from John Humphrey Noyes Illustrating "Matrimonialism"
I have kept my freedom of loving any body and every body that comes to my heart, regardless of matrimonialism.
"The Charitable and Hopeful View of the Social State of the Community," by John Humphrey Noyes, September 1, 1883, in box 68 of: Oneida Community Collection Manuscripts and Personal Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Library, Syracuse, N.Y. As quoted in: Without Sin: The Life and Death of the Oneida Community, [by] Spencer Klaw (New York, N.Y.: Allen Lane, Penguin Press, 1993): p. 278.

matrimoni alla moda:

matrimonium ad morganaticam:

See morganatic marriage.

matrimony:

1. A wedding, which, by distant etymological echoes, entails the social approval of motherhood.

2. The state of being married.

Comment: Some object to this term, since it is sex-specific even though a party of each sex is involved and since the parallel construction, "patrimony," does not bear parallel senses. However, in common usage the etymology is usually forgotten, as in, "These two are now joined in matrimony."

See also break matrimony, holy matrimony, marriage, nuptials, wedding, wedlock.

matripatrilocal residence:

In reference to the married, living first in the wife's place of origin and then in the husband's, generally in accordance with custom.

See also ambilocal residence, amitalocal residence, avunculocal residence, bilocal residence, duolocal residence, matrilocal residence, neolocal residence, patrilocal residence, unilocal residence, uxoribilocal residence, uxorilocal residence, uxoripatrilocal residence, virilocal residence, walk-in marriage.

matrogamist:

1. A man who marries or has married his mother.

2. An advocate or supporter of matrogamy (q.v.).

Coined by me.

matrogamous:

Characterized by or pertaining to mother-son marriage.

Coined by me.

See also matrogamy.

matrogamy:

Mother-son marriage.

Comment: Coined by me; although perhaps it already exists in English. From the Greek, mêtrogamia.

See also -gamy, incest, matrogamous.

x Greek terms.

mature love:

1. Romantic feelings experienced by someone who is no longer young.

2. Love (q.v.) between people who are no longer young.

3. Love between individuals that has endured and grown.

4. Love that is dominated not by the impetus to satisfy one's own needs, as much love is in its early stages, but rather by supportive concern and care for the beloved in a context where each wishes the satisfaction of the other.

5. Love capable of sustaining one's commitment to the beloved, such as a commitment of lifetime sexual exclusivity.

See also acceptive phase, conceptive phase, December-December romance, domestic love, habit of each other, long-term love, mature person, old relationship energy, romantic love, storgic love.

mature man:

See mature person.

mature person:

1. An individual human being who is capable of both reproduction and the responsible rearing of children.

2. An individual human being with traits that at once manifest themselves in self-possession, genuine concern for the welfare of others, and responsible management of private and public affairs, as opposed, for instance, to self-centeredness; an individual of well-rounded virtues and psychological competence, such that he or she is able to stand against powerful external pressures in the interest of goodness; an individual whose moral and psychological development is well advanced and not arrested; a person who has discovered a joy of life even in that which is not otherwise fun or self-gratifying and even in the face of much that is bad.

3. An individual human being who is capable of making judgments without being unduly influenced by emotion.

4. An individual human being who sees past the delusions of life and behaves accordingly.

5. An individual human being who has lived for nearly three decades or longer.

6. An indivudal human being who belongs to a category of sexual attraction for many people: those who are well past their adolescent years and have much experience of life and of sexuality.

Comment: Especially in the last sense, often broken down by sex, as in "mature man" or "mature woman."

See also anilogamy, anisonogamia, December-December romance, gerontogamy, gerontophilia, late-life romance, mature love, mid-life romance, old lady, old man, take the dottle-trot, take the giggle-trot.

x mature man.

x mature woman.

Quotation from J. D. Salinger Illustrating "Mature Person"
[Holden Caulfield] "Who're you going around with now?" I asked him [old Luce, who is a young man, perhaps in his late teens].... "Girl lives in the Village. Sculptress. If you must know." "Yeah? No kidding? How old is she?" .... | "I should imagine she's in her late thirties," old Luce said. "In her late thirties? Yeah? You like that?" I asked him. "You like 'em that old?" The reason I was asking was because he really knew quite a bit about sex and all. He was one of the few guys I knew that did. He lost his virginiy when he was only fourteen, in Nantucket. He really did. "I like a mature person, if that's what you mean. Certainly."
From the novel: The Catcher in the Rye, [by] J. D. Salinger (Boston: Little, Brown, 1951): chapter 19, pp. 188-189. Italics his.

mature woman:

See mature person.

maturity:

See sexual maturity.

May-December romance:

1. The flowering of love between one person who is relatively young and one who is relatively old.

2. A love relationship in which one partner is at or near the prime of fertility while the other is approaching a late stage of the typical human life cycle.

3. A love relationship in which the partners are decades apart in age.

See also age-gap relationship, alphamegamia, anilojuvenogamy, anisonogamia, cougar relationship, December-December romance, dysonogamia, gerontogamy, gerontophilia, intergenerational relationship, Lolita, opsigamy, rob the cradle, romance, spring-autumn romance, sugar daddy, sugar mama, unnatural.

x December-May romance.

mbl:

Married but looking (q.v.).

See also personal ad.

MBL:

Married but lesbian.

See also MarBLes.

mbuya (Nyaturu):

1. Friend, in reference to a member of the same sex.

2. Lover in reference to a member of the opposite sex.

Comment: A term from the Turu of Tanzania.

See also friend, lover, partner, taio, waighembe.

x Nyaturu terms.

mbuya relationship:

A romantic relationship between a man and a woman where the social system permits finding love and affection outside the home and marriage.

Comment: Among the Turu of Tanzania, marriage is conceived as principally an economic and social arrangement, an arrangement which can be destabilized by romantic love between marital partners. However, romantic love outside of a marriage is not perceived as threatening that marriage.

See also ajois relationship, courtly love, friendship, sacanagem.

MC:

Missed connection (q.v.).

M.C.D., or mcd:

Married contrary to discipline (q.v.).

meacock:

1. A withering henpecked husband.

2. A man who dotes on his mate.

Contrast hen-peck (q.v.). See also creeper, pussy-whipped, under petticoat government, uxorious, uxorodespotism, wittol, womaned.

mea Iuno (Latin):

"My Juno," that is, "my wife," perhaps as an allusion to a passage written by the Latin comic playwright, Plautus, who flourished around 200 B.C.

Comment: Juno was a Roman goddess and the wife of the god, Jupiter (Jove). She was the patroness of marriage. Her Greek equivalent was Hera.

See also salvator femininus, sex goddess.

x Iuno.

x Juno.

x Latin terms.

Quotation from Plautus Illustrating "Mea Iuno"
[Lysidamus to his wife, Cleostrata] Heia, mea Iuno, non decet esse te tam tristem tuo Iovi. [Translated] Oh, now, now, Juno mine, it's not nice for you to be so cross with your Jove!
Plautus, Casina 2.3.14, as found in: Plautus, with an English translation by Paul Nixon. [Volume] II (London: William Heinemann; New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1917; in series: The Loeb Classical Library): pp. 24-25.

meal ticket:

1. A date who will spring for a good breakfast, lunch, or supper or for an otherwise good time.

2. A source of financial support.

See also breadwinner, cougar, date, dinner date, lunch date, provider, sugar baby, sugar daddy, sugar mama.

meaningful relationship:

1. A relationship (q.v.) that engages one's sense of purpose in life, especially by making key elements of one's life fall into place with respect to love.

2. A relationship that is characterized by substantial bonds, especially one that is loving, not merely sexual.

3. A relationship that is or is likely to be durable.

4. A relationship that has a profound effect upon one's life.

See also big "R" relationship, friendship, fulfilling relationship, long-term relationship, love relationship, quality relationship, romantic relationship.

meat market:

1. A place where people who prepare food for carnivores or omnivores can select animal flesh for purchase.

2. By analogy, a place or the set of places where one can meet people with whom to have sex.

See also attraction venue, gay bar, open party, pick-up joint, shop around, singles bar, singles party.

x market.

Quotation from Maureen Dowd Illustrating "Meat market"
[A friend regarding Ivy League girls] "... they're actually a little scared to go out into the meat market. It's all very ritualized. "Initially, they have tremendous power, cruising into the clubs with their bosoms hanging out."
From: Are Men Necessary? When Sexes Collide, [by] Maureen Dowd (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, c2005): pp. 40-41.

media widow:

Spouse of a person who spends extraordinary amounts of time away from home for the sake of journalism.

Comment: Sometimes "media widow" is used for a female and "media widower" for a male.

See also cyber widow, fishing widow, golf widow, sports widow, spouse, tennis widow, widow.

Quotation from Armistead Maupin Illustrating "Media Widower"
[14] [Mrs. Madrigal] "It's a bitch, isn't it?" [Brian Hawkins] "What?" "Being a media widower." He came up with a smile for her. "It isn't that. I'm proud of her [Mary Ann]." "Of course." "I had just ... counted on being with her tonight. That's all." "I know the feeling," she said.... [15] "... Our private life has to take a back seat to every dumbass little news story that comes down the pike."
From the novel: Babycakes, [by] Armistead Maupin (New York: Harper & Row, 1984; "Perennial Library"; Tales of the City Series; v. 4)): pp. 14-15. The first mark of elision is Maupin's.

meet-cute:

An initial encounter between lovers-to-be that is humorous or otherwise appealling in the telling or depiction, or the story thereof.

Comment: Also called a cute meet.

See also assignation, cute meet, tryst.

Quotation from Spider Robinson Illustrating "Meet-Cute"
About a week later, as I [Joel Johnston of Ganymede] was wandering around in a daze thinking, Well, that wasn't as horrible as it could have been, I had a meet-cute with Diane Levy. She did not notice me sit down next to her at dinner, tried to turn around and grab the sugar from the table behind us, and coldcocked me with her elbow. Or was it? I thought., and woke to find her large liquid eyes as close as one might expect to find those of a lover. Four hours later, she was one.
From the science fiction novel: Variable Star, [by] Robert A. Heinlein and Spider Robinson (New York: TOR, A Tom Doherty Associates Book, 2006): p. 199; cf. 197.

mekhuteneste (Yiddish):

The mother of one's son-in-law or daughter-in-law.

See also consuegro, in-law, kinship, mekhutn, mekhutonim.

x Yiddish terms.

mekhutn (Yiddish):

The father of one's son-in-law or daughter-in-law.

See also consuegro, in-law, kinship, mekhuteneste, mekhutonim.

x Yiddish terms.

mekhutonim (Yiddish):

The parents of one's son-in-law or daughter-in-law.

See also consuegro, in-law, kinship, mekhuteneste, mekhutn.

x Yiddish terms.

mell:

1. To mingle, mix, or combine.

2. To mingle for sexual purposes.

3. To copulate.

Quotation from William Shakespeare Illustrating "Mell"
FIRST SOLDIER [reads] ... And say a soldier, Dian, told thee this, Men are to mell with, boys are but to kiss.
From: William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well (circa 1600-1604): Act 4, Scene 3, lines 228-229.

ménage (French):

1. The members of a household, collectively considered.

2. An in-common living arrangement for members of a love relationship.

See also cohabitation, co-vivant, good match, household, letter group (J), living together, long engagement, love relationship, ménage à trois, multimate relationship, non-monogamy, paperless marriage, PASSLQ, POSSLQ, quasi-conjugal dyad, shack up, share the same bedroom.

x French terms.

ménage à deux; plural, ménages à deux (French):

1. "Household of two"; two people who live together.

2. A ménage à trois that has lost a member.

See also couple, duet, dyad, ménage à trois, monogamy.

x French terms.

Quotation from George Bernard Shaw Illustrating "Ménage à Deux"
For the husband vanished too! The ménage which had prospered so pleasantly as a ménage à trois proved intolerable as a ménage à deux. This marriage which all the mystic powers had forbidden from the first went to pieces when the unlucky parties no longer had me between them.
From: Shaw: An Autobiography, 1856-1898, selected from his writings by Stanley Weintraub (New York: Weybright and Talley, c1969): p. 169. Taken from: William Morris as I Knew Him, by Bernard Shaw (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1936).

ménage à trois; plural, ménages à trois (French):

1. "Household of three"; one person in a sexual relationship with two others or all three in a sexual relationship with each other, especially such a group that lives together.

2. Group sex (q.v.) with three particpants, especially if two are married to each other.

See also biamory, bi-trio, brother starling, cicisbeo, eternal triangle, French arrangement, have two strings to (one's) bow, mariage à trois, ménage, ménage à deux, mistress, non-monogamy, notr'amour, oot, share (one's partner) with, third party, three-cornered establishment, threesome, three-way sex, triad, triangle, trisexual, troika, troilism.

x French terms.

men are all the same, or men are all alike:

1. An expression of the view that human males have sex constantly on their minds, at least when they are around women.

2. An expression of the view that the male agenda will never mesh well with the female agenda and that therefore a woman will always be disappointed by or have to make extraordinary accommodation for a man.

3. An expression of the view that any one man should be sufficient to satisfy a woman, especially if he and she are emotionally bonded, since he has the organs common to every male.

Comment: Each of those views entails a measure of myth, especially the last.

See also all men to (me), ladder theory, women are all the same (which see especially for the note).

x all men are the same.

x myths.

menstruant as forbidden:

A woman having her period being off-limits to a man for sexual and sometimes other forms of contact, per some cultural taboos. In fact, being off-limits may extend beyond her period.

Comments: Sexual contact with a menstruant is forbidden in the Hebrew Bible (Leviticus 15:24-25, 33; 18:19 = 20:18; Ezekiel 18:6; 22:10), and it may be one of the implied prohibitions in Sirach = Ecclesiasticus 23:17.

The New Testament nowhere explicitly suggests that this prohibition was one of those carried forward by the Council of Jerusalem, under the rubric of either "sexual impurity" (porneia) or "blood," for "those who are turning to God among the Gentiles" (Acts 15:19-20, 29), except that it is in the same list of "cut off" offenses for both Israelites and the aliens among them that the Council appears to have been drawing upon (Leviticus 18:19, 26-29). There are, however, various indications that the Apostles might have regarded that prohibition as having been nullified by the implications of being "in Christ." See, for example, Matthew 9:20-22 = Mark 5:25-34 = Luke 8:43-48; Matthew 15:10-20 = Mark 7:14-23; Luke 11:41; 1 Corinthians 7:5; Galatians 3:28; and Titus 1:15.

Rabbinic literature classifies the prohibition as a matter of ritual purity, and it recognizes exceptions to the prohibition. For example, an exception is made for a husband returning from a journey (Mishnah Niddah 2:4) and an exception is made for a "coition of obligation," that is, consummation (Mishnah Niddah 10:1).

Some elements of Christianity have maintained the prohibition, as, for example, did Gregory the Great (circa 540-604). See his Epistles 11.64, question 10 = Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum 1.27, question 8.

Modern science has detected no inherent harm in sexual intercourse during a menstrual period, although following the biblical regulations might have some fertility benefits. The taboo as cultural taboo has largely disappeared in many segments of Western society.

See also adultery, arsenokoitês, consummation, deceased wife's sister question, father's wife, first-cousin marriage, Holiness Code, incest, Law and gospel, lesbian, niddah, porneia, pornos, sexual immorality, sexual sin.

mercheta (Welsh):

To be a womanizer; to chase women.

Comment: From mérched ("women") + -ha (a verbal suffix).

See also philander, womanize.

x Welsh terms.

mercheta mulierum (Latin):

A fee payable to a lord upon the wedding of a daughter of one of his villeins.

Comment: Mercheta is probably related to the Latin word, merces (-edis), which can mean "ransom" or "price," so mercheta mulierum would be "price of a woman." However, one wonders whether there was any historical relation to the preceding Welsh term, even by way of a pun, hence, "womanizing of a woman."

See also amober, avail of marriage, briderpice, droit de seigneur, formariage, ius primae noctis, lairwite, maritage.

x Latin terms.

Quotation from Edward Westermarck Illustrating "Mercheta Mulierum"
Thus old writers on the history of Scotland tell us that King Evenus III., contemporary with Augustus, made a law by which he and his successors in the throne were authorised to lie with every bride, if a woman of quality, before her husband could approach her; and in consequence of this law the great men of the nation had a power of the same kind over the brides of their vassals and servants. The law was strictly observed throughout the kingdom, and was only discontinued or repealed more than ten whole centuries afterwards, when the importunities of St. Margaret prevailed with her husband, Malcolm Cammor (or Canmore), to abolish this unjustifiable custom. From that time forward, the vassal or servant was allowed to redeem the first night of his bride by paying a tax in money, which was called the mercheta mulierum. -- The story was first told by Boece, or Boethius, and subsequently repeated by other historians.
From: The History of Human Marriage, by Edward Westermarck (5th ed., rewritten. Bew York: Allerton Book Co., 1922): chapter 5, v. 1, p. 174; cf. pp. 176-177. Westermarck in turn cites Boethius, Scotorum historiae a prima gentis origine, book iii. fol. 34 b sq.

merchetwr (Welsh):

A womanizer (q.v.). ; a philanderer (q.v.).

x Welsh terms.

merkin:

1. A wig for the pubic region of the body.

2. A man whom a woman has accompanying her or has married in order to conceal her homosexuality; a lesbian's cosmetic date or husband.

See also beard, bearding, decoy, frock, half-husband, homosexuality, merkin, MarBLes, mixed-orientation marriage, pass, screen for love, straight credentials.

mésalliance (French):

Marriage (q.v.) to one of lower position.

See also anuloma marriage, folly, hypergamy, hypogamy, left-handed marriage, marry down, mating gradient, morganatic marriage, pratiloma marriage.

x French terms.

Messalina:

A woman who is promiscuous with men, especially one who is powerful.

Comment: The term derives from Valeria Messalina (died A.D. 48), who was the third wife of the Roman emperor, Claudius I. She was said to have been extremely promiscuous and was executed for having bigamously married her favorite lover during Claudius' absence from Rome. See Tacitus, Annals 11.26-38; Suetonius, Claudius 26-29, 39; Juvenal, Satires 6.114-135.

Contrast Casanova (q.v.), Don Juan (q.v.), and Lothario (q.v.). See also bedhopper, bimbo, box of assorted creams, dalliance, Delilah, demirep, Don Juaness, dulcinea, femme fatale, flirt-gill, free love, giglet, güila, hoe, homosexual, hoochie, hothusband, hotwife, Jezebel, Juliet, libertinism, lothariette, Mae West, make-out artist, multicipara, multimitus, nymphomaniac, philanderer, pick up artist, player, playgirl, promiscuity, punch board, punchbroad, rabbit, rake, satyr, seductress, sex maniac, sexual varietism, Sherfey syndrome, she-wolf, shiksa, skirt-chaser, slut, slutty, slut wife, smellsmock, tail-femme, tart, tramp, wanton woman, wolf; blowen, courtesan, moll, parnel, squaw, whore.

Messalina complex:

A psychological urge on the part of a woman to engage in sexual activity with more and more men.

Contrast Casanova complex (q.v.). See also andromania, Catherine the Great complex, libertinism, lovertine, nymphomania, promiscuity, sex maniac, sexual addiction, sexual varietism, Sherfey syndrome.

x complexes.

metamour:

A person besides oneself who is in a love relationship with one's love relationship partner, yet with whom one does not have a direct sexual or love relationship.

Comment: From the Greek: meta ("with") + amor ("love"). Given the Greek construction, I would have expected this term to apply to the person two or more people share in common, for "meta" commonly means "between, in the middle of." I find it a stretch to reach the meaning it has been given.

See also polyamour, polyamorist, vee.

metasex:

Non-procreative sexual activity, which (in the view of Marco Vassi, who coined the term) should therefore be free of moral restrictions and obligations associated with procreation; recreational sex (q.v.).

Comment: This is as distinguished from "sex," which, in Vassi's scheme, was a term to be used in reference to procreative sexual activity.

See also aterpism, brothel behavior, erotosexual, function of sex, libertinism, moral equivalence, procreative meaning, sacred sex, sex.

Metuchen theory:

The hypothesis, based on general observation, that in the early Twentieth Century people who lived in small towns in the United States, such as Metuchen, New Jersey, were highly likely -- on the order of 90% of the time -- to marry either a high-school sweetheart or someone who lived within five blocks of home.

Comment: The theory seems to have been more tongue-in-cheek than serious.

See also boy-next-door theory, girl-next-door theory, mate selection, nearest donut theory, propinquity factor.

x theories.

Quotation from Alfred Alvarez on the Metuchen Theory
Early in this century, a witty bishop of New Jersey formulated what he called the "Metuchen theory," according to which ninety percent of small-town Americans married their high-school sweethearts or, at their most adventurous, someone who lived within five blocks of home. Free choice barely came into it; all that mattered was that the future partner be presentable and at hand.
From: Life After Marriage: Love in an Age of Divorce, by A. Alvarez (New York: Simon and Schuster, c1981): p. 239.

Michelangelo phenomenon:

Movement of own's own self toward one's own ideal of the self, insofar as a close partner's perceptions of oneself and behavior towards oneself influence that movement; partners bringing out the best in each other, such that they become better people in their own eyes.

Comment: Named after the Italian Renaissance sculptor and overall creative genius Michelangelo (1475–1564).

Source: "Close Partner as Sculptor of the Ideal Self: Behavioral Affirmation and the Michelangelo Phenomenon," by Stephen Michael Drigotas, Caryl E. Rusbult, Jennifer Wieselquist, & Sarah W. Whitton, in: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology; v. 77 (1999): pp. 293-323. <Not examined>

See also entelechy, ideal, Pygmalion effect, pygmalionism.

x phenomena.

microphily:

A disproportionate friendship, particularly one that is disproportionate in means or minds.

See also friendship, incompatibility, lop-sided relationship, one-sided relationship, -philia, poor match, unequally yoked.

mid-life romance:

1. A romance (q.v.) between middle-aged individuals; love between individuals who are no longer young but who are still in the prime of life.

2. A romance on the part of a middle-aged person, even with a person at a different stage of life.

See also late-life romance, mature person.

midons:

The female ruler of one's heart, not one's spouse; a man's lady-love; in the art of courtly love, how a man might address his female love interest.

See also courtly love, Frauendienst, lady-love, love interest, Minnedienst.

Quotation from C. S. Lewis on Midons
In Courtly Love "The lover is the lady's 'man'. He addresses her as midons, which etymologically represents not 'my lady' but 'my lord'."
From: The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition, by C.S. Lewis (London: Oxford University Press, 1936): p. 2.

migratory divorce:

A divorce (q.v.) obtained by a spouse in a jurisdiction to which he or she has relocated for that purpose.

See also foreign divorce.

MIL:

Mother-in-law.

See -in-law.

mile-high club, or mile high club:

Those people, collectively considered, who have in common having engaged in sexual intercourse while on board an airplane that was in flight.

Comments: Some people insist that to qualify, the plane must be at least one mile up at the time, factors such as lower atmospheric pressure supposedly making a key difference in the experience.

The term can be traced back at least to 1972. However, those who had the experience prior to the invention of the name are considered members. Founding status is given to Lawrence Sperry and Mrs. Waldo Polk, the first people strongly suspected to have engaged in sexual activity together on board a plane in flight (albeit at less than a mile up). That was aboard a Curtiss Flying Boat, with the autopilot on, over Babylon, New York in November of 1916. The plane wound up crashing in South Bay. Both survived; but, so the story goes, were found without their clothes on.

"Mile High Club" is also a name that has been used by various groups in Denver, Colorado, the "Mile-High City."

See also crew dating, notional sex club, sky candy.

x club.

MILF, or milf:

Acronym for "mother (or mom) I'd like to f*ck."

1. A woman who is old enough to be one's mother and whom one finds sexually desirable.

2. A woman of mothering age who excites one's sexual desire, especially but not necessarily one who actually is a mother; an attractive mature woman, one who is neither nubile nor beyond the typical age of mothering, especially one who at some time in her life has given birth.

Comment: The term can be documented online at least back to 1995, and some claim that it was already current back in the 1980s. Coinage of the term has been attributed to various people, among them the actor Vin Diesel.

By "mothering age," in the second definition, is typically meant over 30 and less than 56, but the term is often applied without regard to any precise age limits.

Although the acronym both masks a word widely regarded as vulgar and is now used extensively in the porn industry, some women are proud to own it, although some of them find the usually male "I" in the acronym disjunctive enough that they substitute a "Y," thus: "[I'm a] mother you'd like to f***."

Here, then, is an example of male versus female versions of English. However, such a dichotomy is muddied by other points of view. For example, a young man may write of a male friend's mother, "Your mom's a milf"; and the friend might reply, "Yeah, a mylf."

Although "mother I'd like to f*ck" has become well established as a meaning for MILF, sometimes the "M" is used to stand for another word, such as "man." Furthermore, "ILF" can be appended to any letter or set of letters in order to vary who it is that is being referred to; hence "FILF" ("father I'd like to f*ck"), "HILF" ("husband I'd like to f*ck"), and "WILF" ("wife or woman I'd like to f*ck").

See also attractive, cougar, FILF, f**kable, GMILF, HILF, -ILF, mother, MYLF, WILF, yummy mummy.

Quotation from the Movie "American Pie" (1999)
[While looking at a picture of Steve Stifler's mom] MILF Guy #2: Dude that chick's a MILF! MILF Guy #1: What to hell is that? MILF Guy #2: M-I-L-F Mom I'd Like to Fuck! MILF Guy #1: Yeah dude! Yeah!
From the movie "American Pie," directed by Paul Weitz; written by Adam Herz (released July 9, 1999); the dialogue portion here as transcribed in the Internet Movie Database. MILF Guy #1 is played by Justin Isfeld, MILF Guy #2 is played by John Cho, and Stiffler's mom is played by Jennifer Coolidge.

military widow:

A woman whose husband died while he was serving in the military.

Comment: Often the branch of the armed services is used instead of the word "military," as in "Air Force widow," "Army widow," "Coast Guard widow," "Marine widow," and "Navy widow."

See also widow.

military widower:

A man whose wife died while she was serving in the military.

Comment: Often the branch of the armed services is used instead of the word "military," as in "Air Force widower," "Army widower," "Coast Guard widower," "Marine widower," and "Navy widower."

See also widower.

milk incest:

Sexual intercourse with or marriage to one's wet nurse, the wet nurse of a relative, a person who has also been suckled by either of these wet nurses, or their kin, insofar as this violates kinship rules.

See also incest, rada`.

milk two cows:

To have two women one has sex with.

See also have two strings to (one's) bow, serve two studs, sexual non-exclusivity, share (one's) favors.

Quotations from John Updike Illustrating "Milking Two Cows"
[Harold little-Smith to Janet Appleby] "But have you no evidence [of an affair]? There's been no confession from Frank? He hasn't asked to leave you?" "Why should he want to leave me? He's happy. He's milking two cows." "Janet, you don't put things very gracefully."
From the novel: Couples, [by] John Updike (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968; "A Borzoi Book"): p. 119.

mimbo:

A male bimbo; an uncomplicated or shallow man with strong sex appeal for many.

Coinage: The American TV sitcom, "Seinfeld," Season 5, Episode 73 (or 76?), "The Stall," written by Larry Charles, directed by Tom Cherones (first aired, January 6, 1994).

See also bimbo, himbo, modelizer.

mingling among races:

See racial commingling.

Minnedienst (German):

"Love service"; performance of courtly love.

Comment: Minne (an obsolete form meaning "love") + Dienst ("service").

See also courtly love, dulia, Frauendienst, midons.

x German terms.

Quotation from Joseph Barry Illustrating "Minnedienst"
The minnedienst, literally love service, rendered the lady of the castle [in the 12th-13th centuries] is now easily recognizable as the feudalization of love, emerging as it did, virtually fully formed from its ready-made mould.
From: French Lovers: From Heloise and Abelard to Beauvoir and Sartre, by Joseph Barry (New York: Arbor House, c1987): p. 38.

minx:

1. A seductress; a flirtatious woman.

2. A sexually promiscuous woman.

3. A saucy woman.

Comment: The origin of the term is obscure. In the common imagination, the term may be linked to the mink (in America, mammals of the genus Neovision). Indeed, "minx" is an obsolete term for the mink (in fact, a term for mink I learned in New England as a child). However, The Oxford English Dictionary speculates that it derives from the term of endearment for a female, "minikin," which in turn derives from the Middle Dutch minne ("love") + -kijn ("kin").

See also box of assorted creams, bonobo way, Don Juaness, flirt-gill, multicipara, nymphomaniac, playgirl, punch board, punchbroad, rabbit, seductress, sex kitten, she-wolf, slut, tart, vamp, wanton woman, whore, wild.

x Dutch terms.

Quotation from Maureen Dowd Illustrating "Minxes"
Many high-powered career women [in the 1980s] were secretly thrilled to | return to the era of artful minxes.
From: Are Men Necessary? When Sexes Collide, [by] Maureen Dowd (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, c2005): pp. 19-20.

miscegenation:

1. Intermarriage or sexual intercourse between persons of different races.

2. In a vulgar racist sense: Black men preying on white women.

Comments: Although race as a social construction is worthy of study, the idea of race as a neat way of dividing humankind is faulty, for human beings are on a continuum of differences.

In the United States, laws against miscegenation were struck down by the Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia (1967). Among the precursors of that decision was the decision of the California Supreme Court in Perez v. Lippold, 32 Cal.2d 711 (1948).

See also allotriorasty, amixia, biracial couple, creolism, exogamy, interracial couple, interracial marriage, Mandingo party, marriage, mixed race couple, outbreeding, panmixia, population race, racial commingling, sexual revolution, white wife.

misérables, that is, "les misérables" (French):

"The miserable, wretched, pitiful ones": often applied, in a tragi-comic or cynical way, to:

1. Those in the marital state; thus the term is synonymous, except for the attitude, with "the married."

2. Those who are in the marital state unhappily or drearily; thus the term is synonymous with "the unhappily married."

3. Those of one sex or another who are married and who are experiencing some of the common unpleasant aspects of marriage.

Comments: The term recalls readily to mind and is sometimes used as an allusion to the classic novel by Victor Hugo, Les Misérables (1862); however, the misery in that novel was of a different sort.

In the debate over the legalization of gay marriage, one of the common refrains was, "Let them be as miserable as all the rest of us." That refrain reverberated with this much older use of "les misérables." (Being from Massachusetts and writing this paragraph in April of 2006, I speak in the past tense.)

See also cagamosis, dysfunctional relationship, loveless marriage, marital blues, marriage shock, marriage-trap, married, martyred spouse, rocky relationship, unhappily married, unsuccessful marriage.

x French.

Quotation from Ruth Dickson Illustrating "Les Miserables"
These ladies [wives] with their diapers, diets, and dreary days almost always hate us care-free, unshackled singlettes. That's why they're always trying to "fix us up" with some creepy bachelor, to first, get rid of a menace, and second, add one more to their company of les miserables.
From: Married Men Make the Best Lovers, by Ruth Dickson (Los Angeles, Calif: Sherbourne Press, c1967): p. 69. Dickson omits the accent (the é in les misérables). By the way, part of this quotation is used elsewhere in this Glossary; see under "singlette."

mislove:

1. To love imperfectly; to underappreciate; to esteem insufficiently.

2. To be callous, neglectful, or hateful towards one (or towards what) it is one's duty to love and care for.

3. To devote oneself inappropriately, as to people who are either bad or prohibited to oneself or to the wrong things.

See also astorgy, love, love-hate relationship, unlove.

mismatch:

See poor match.

misogamic:

Pertaining to an intense dislike of the idea of marriage, either in general or for oneself.

See also misogamy.

misogamist:

A marriage hater.

See also agamist, Jemimaite, misogamy.

misogamous:

Pertaining to or characterized by misogamy (q.v).

Comment: Absent in the dictionaries I've checked, but a natural permutation of the word "misogamy," so here included.

misogamy:

An intense dislike of the idea of marriage, either in general or for oneself.

See also commitmentphobia, gamophobia, -gamy, marriagefree, misogamist, misogamous, nonogamy, -phobia.

misracara (Sanskrit):

A Tantric practice whereby a devotee moves between a life of social normalcy, inclusive of monogamous marriage, and a life of radical independence, which involves living at home with nature, going about naked, and being sexually promiscuous.

Comment: This is a term used in the Nila Tantra.

See also monogamy, promiscuity.

x Sanskrit terms.

x Tantrism.

miss:

1. A title for a single woman placed before her first or last name in capitalized form. Example: "Miss Anderson." Sometimes a divorced woman will retain a "Mrs." before her name; but, if she reverts to her maiden name, commonly she will also revert to "Miss," if she uses any title indicative of marital status at all. Generally a widow would not use a "Miss" before her name.

2. Title used in addressing a woman, especially a young one, in lieu of her name, as when her name is unknown. Example: "Thank you, miss."

3. Title for a woman one wishes to suggest is young or wishes not to presume is married, used with or without her name -- if with, capitalized; if without, not.

4. A maiden; a young unmarried woman.

Comment: Some prefer to let the title "Miss" lapse into disuse, since the closest comparable title for a male is "master," which is ambiguous, which doesn't precisely focus on marital status, and which in the sense of "title for a male youth" seems to be little used nowadays. Thus "Miss" is considered an instance of gender unfairness in language. The complement to "Mr.," a title not specifically indicative of marital status, is "Ms."

See also angélica, bachelorette, divorcée, dance barefoot, feme sole, jeune fille à marier, maiden, maiden name, marital status, Mrs., née, never married, nubile, odd woman, single, spinster, unmarried.

Quotation from Ambrose Bierce Illustrating "Miss"
Miss, n. A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market. Miss, Missis (Mrs.) and Mister (Mr.) are the three most distinctly disagreeable words in the language, in sound and sense. Two are corruptions of Mistress, the other of Master. In the general abolition of social titles in this our country [the U.S.A.] they miraculously escaped to plague us. If we must have them let us be consistent and give one to the unmarried man. I veture to suggest Mush, abbreviated to Mh.
Humor from: The Devil's Dictionary, [by] Ambrose Bierce (New York: Dover Publications, 1958): p. 88. Originally published in full in v. 7 (1911) of The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce (New York: Neale Publishing Co., 1909-1912).

miss, as in "to miss a person":

1. To feel an absence because of habituation to a presence, not necessarily a physical presence.

2. To feel the absence of a living being because certain types of interactions that one enjoys are also absent, even if other interactions carry on, for instance, through correspondence.

3. To yearn for; to feel an unwelcome separation.

4. To feel that reunion is not yet complete or that togetherness is yet lacking a degree of intimacy.

5. To feel torn apart from a person to whom one was bonded due to death or forced separation or break up and to feel twinges of loss even after the continuous intensity of emotions has let up.

6. To feel a corporate loss and wish for restoration, even with regard to somebody one did not know.

7. To feel an imaginative or hypothetical absence, for instance, for a soul mate that one has not yet and might never find.

Comment: The term is sometimes used as understatement or ambiguity, for instance, to cover emotions, to reflect mitigation by conflicitng emotions, to not seem overly sentimental, to invite clarification, or to invite a ritualized response, for example:

"I missed you."

Flirtatious response: "How much did you miss me?"

As part of the vocabulary of friendship, romantic love, and familial love, its multi-leveled ambiguities often play a role in the delicate dance of relationships.

See also aeipathy, broken heart, cri de coeur, ex-husband syndrome, ex-wife syndrome, get over, ghosts of relationships past, grief, heartache, let go, loneliness, lonely heart, lovelorn, love trauma syndrome, love-trouble, love withdrawal, pine for, post break-up funk, postmarital blues, saudade, withdrawal anguish.

missed connection:

1. A person whom one has encountered or seen and would like to find again, typically to explore the possibility of a romance, but for whom one has no contact information.

2. The failure to meet that person and obtain the contact information in the first place, whether out of the lack of opportunity or shyness.

Comment: Abbreviated MC.

Various services, such as Craigslist, provide a section called "Missed Connections" where people post ads for those they are seeking. The scope of such postings can be extremely broad, covering, for instance, old acquaintances with whom one has lost touch.

See also connection, long-lost love, lost and found lover, lost love, MC, retrosexual, saudade, TOTGA.

missis:

See missus.

Miss Right:

The unmarried woman or the sort of unmarried woman one expects would make an excellent match for oneself, especially in the context of a monogamous relationship; the single woman who seems to fit one's ideal of a perfect mate for oneself, insofar as any human being can fit an ideal.

Comment: The standard joke is, "I'm not looking for Miss Right, I'm looking for Miss Right Now!"

Contrast Mister Right (q.v.) and right man (q.v.). See also affinity, connaturality, good match, ideal, kinship, lovemap, made for each other, match made in heaven, Ms. Right, mystic betrothal, one, one-and-only, one true love, perfect catch, right person, right woman, sexual connection, soul mate, spiritual connection, spiritual marriage, spiritual wife, template (for a lover), type, woman of (one's) dreams.

missus or missis:

1. Informally speaking, one's wife, as in "the missus," or someone's wife, as in "his missus."

2. The head female of a household, as sometimes referred to by servants.

Comment: The term derives from "mistress" (q.v.) and is the oral equivalent of "Mrs." (q.v.). Sometimes it is spelled "Mrs."

See also Hausfrau.

x missis.

Quotation from D. H. Lawrence Illustrating "Missis"
He bought her [his step-daughter, Anna] a cake at the refreshment-booth, and set her on a seat. A man hailed him. "Good morning, Tom. That thine, then?" -- and the bearded farmer jerked his head at Anna. "Ay," said Brangwen, deprecating. "I did-na know tha'd one that old." "No, it's my missis's." "Oh, that's it!"
From the novel: The Rainbow, by D. H. Lawrence (New York: B. W. Huebsch, c1915, 1921 printing): chapter 3, p. 78.