Husbondhode

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The careful management of a household or landed property, including its resources and servants ; the condition or standing of being a married man
2. Stewardship over a home or estate and its affairs ; the state of holding the role of a spouse in a marriage
3. Oversight of domestic or estate affairs and their economy ; the position and status a man holds as a wedded partner

Etymology: Before it meant a married man, "husband" meant the master of a household. Its Old English form, "husbonda," combined "hus" (house) with a word for a dweller or occupier, and it was reinforced in Middle English by the closely related Old Norse "húsbóndi," which carried the same sense of a householder with authority over the home and those in it. The spousal meaning developed later, as the household was increasingly understood around the married head of it. The ending "-hood" was once a free-standing noun, "hād," meaning state, condition, or rank, and it is related to "had" in the sense of a person's rank or order. That is why "childhood" and "priesthood" describe states of being. Attaching it to "husband" gives a word for the condition or status of being a husband or of managing a household, a sense that now survives mainly in older English.