Trophy wife

Trophy wife

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Trophy wife is an expression used to refer to a wife, usually young and attractive, who is regarded as a status symbol for the husband, who is often older and wealthy.

Trophy husband is an expression used to refer to a husband, usually young and attractive, who is regarded as a status symbol for the wife, who is often older and wealthy.

The use of the term also usually reflects negatively on the character or personality of the husband, and has a connotation of narcissism and desire to impress others, and that the husband would not be able to attract the sexual interest of the attractive woman but for his wealth or position. It can also be used to imply that the trophy wife in question has little personal merit besides her physical attractiveness, and is sometimes synonymous with the term "gold digger."

History

The term's etymological origins are disputed. One claim is that trophy wife originally appeared in a 1950 issue of The Economist newspaper,^{[citation needed]} referring to the historical practice of warriors capturing the most beautiful women during battle to bring home as wives.^[1] William Safire claimed that the term trophy wife was coined by Julie Connelly, a senior editor of Fortune magazine, in a cover story in the issue of August 28, 1989^[2] and immediately entered common usage.^{[citation needed]} Many sources claim the term was coined earlier (for example, the Online Etymology Dictionary cites 1984^[3]) but easy online access to William Safire's article about the term has led many (such as Oxford English Dictionary) to believe that August 28, 1989 was its first use.^[4] However, the idiom is found in passing in a quote in a 1965 publication, apparently referring to the wife of Bernie Madoff. Although considering all these possible recent origins of the term it must be noted that the term in Latin, TROPAEUM UXOR, appears in many scripts of both Greek and Roman origin dating as far back as the first half of the First century (50 AD), like for example in the Naturalis Historia (Gaio Plinio Secondo), although probably the meaning was not close to today's meaning and was referring more properly to "trophy women" as part of the a tribute to Roman conquerors by the defeated opponents ^[5]

Comedian Steven Wright once quipped, "A friend of mine has a trophy wife. But from the looks of her, it wasn't first place".^[6]

The marriage of former Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith to oil billionaire J. Howard Marshall was widely followed by the US mass media as an extreme example of this concept.^[7] At the time of their marriage, he was 89 years old and she was 26.^[8]

The entire wiki link on the subject can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophy_wife