Winter’s Wedding Words: Husband
I’m never one to kink shame but I have to admit I nearly spat my tea when I was researching this one; under ‘husband’ in my etymological dictionary was the instruction to, “See ‘Bondage'”.
Another surprise on this etymological adventure was that it would lead me to 007 himself.
‘Husband’ is a compound of two words: ‘house’ and ‘bond’ (not ‘band’). Old English (about 800 years ago) combined ‘hus’ meaning ‘house’ and ‘bonda’ meaning ‘hold’ into ‘husbonda’, which meant householder, lord of the house, house owner. Before this, it probably came from something scandiwegian as Old Icelandic has the very similar ‘hūsbondi’.
But get this. The ‘bond’ bit originally meant tennant (ie not land owning) farmer, or serf. When you think about the modern meanings of bond, it starts to make sense. Tie, fetter, bind, hold, commit. These folk would hold their land temporarily rather than own it. You can also see how ‘bond’ became ‘bondage’ as in enslave or servitude.
It’s also probably the source of the surname Bond. The original Bonds were unlikely to be driving an Aston Martin. 007 has come a long way.