If a widow and a widower form a relationship when they're both in their seventies, what is the proper and appropriate name for their relationship?
Legally, they're married, because here in the state of Colorado, if you live together and represent yourself as married, you're married, even if you haven't sought governmental sanction. Yet "husband" and "wife" don't come easily to the lips. They seem too doggone official. And they also seem like words out of an earlier era, especially "wife," which carries irrelevant overtones of a dominant-submissive relationship. "Just a housewife."
But "companion" is only slightly better. To my ear, it smacks of "faithful companion Tonto." "Partner" is even worse; are we associates in a law firm?
"Girlfriend" and "boyfriend" are clearly ludicrous and inappropriate to persons of mature years. Such words lack seriousness and heft; they trivialize a weighty relationship. So, similarly, does the naked "friend," which in this context is colorless, neutral. "Ladyfriend" is a bit more serious. "Gentleman caller" was last said without irony in Peoria sometime in the middle of the nineteenth century. "Mistress" suggests that the friendship is merely sexual; its counterpart, "gigolo," is even more specific, and seedy to boot. "Lover" is also one-dimensional.
"Old lady" and "old man" are outmoded hippieisms. So is "significant other." Other archaisms: "main squeeze," "stud," "pal," "steady lay," "fancy man." "Love-slave."
"Spouse"? No, too dry, too legalistic. "Consort"? Disrespectful. "Odalisque"? "Handmaiden." Sexist. "Concubine?"
It's fascinating that we've had more trouble with nomenclature than with living, eating, working, and sleeping together.
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