"This is My Bi-otch"

Interesting article in the Western Standard about the hesitancy of "men" in Quebec to refer to their wives by that name. Subscriber link. Excerpts:Â

Tristan Peloquin, a 28-year-old Montreal journalist, admits he never calls his wife of three years by that term. Rather, "It's always my girlfriend or ma blonde," an untranslatable term that, to English ears, sounds like something a mobster might call his moll. "Even if the girl has dark hair," he says, "we say ma blonde; I don't know why." He also doesn't know exactly why he treats "wife" like a four-letter word. "I find it just a bit too formal to talk about my girlfriend as my wife, you know?"

The article goes on:

Le Bourdais says that, for many Quebec couples, the use of husband and wife "smacks of possessiveness." She adds: "These terms are associated with an outdated situation where gender roles were very segregated, the wife at home, and the husband at work." Of course, in those days, living together before marriage was considered the oddity. But thanks to years of feminist progress and religious regress, modern Quebec has turned it all around. Yes, it's still common for heterosexuals to marry there--they just prefer no one finds out about it.