Uxorilocal

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. A marital living situation where the male partner settles within his spouse's family's home instead of his own origin
2. An arrangement in which the husband takes residence among the relatives of his wife rather than his own family members
3. A living arrangement whereby a husband resides with his wife's family rather than among his own relatives

Etymology: Uxorilocal is a technical coinage built from Latin and English parts. Its first element comes from Latin "uxor," meaning "wife," and the middle "-i-" is a linking vowel of the kind used in scientific and anthropological compounds, while the final element is the English word "local." Put together, the term describes a social arrangement in which a married couple lives in the household or community of the wife's family, the reverse of the arrangement in which a husband's family takes the couple in. The construction is typical of the specialist vocabulary of anthropology and kinship studies, where Latin and Greek elements are regularly joined to English words to name precise social patterns. Its partner terms follow the same logic: a patrilocal arrangement places the couple with the husband's kin, and a matrilocal one, the wife's mother's kin. Uxorilocal therefore sits within a set of labels that describe where a newly married pair settles.