7 thoughts on “Howdy, partner?”

• barbara says:

  October 30, 2008 at 5:35 pm

  It started when people began living together in defacto relationships and they were aged 30 and over, it sounded ridiculous to introduce them as girfriend and boyfriend at that age, and to say this is my defacto when introducing each other to other people didn’t seem right also. So that is when partner came into being. When married some introduce their other half as husband or wife or if their into political correctness, partner.

• Tors says:

  November 1, 2008 at 2:37 pm

  Actually, it goes back even further than that. When Australia was a penal colony, convicts would frequently “shack up” together, even if they already had a spouse back in England. Since they couldn’t get legally married, they were “partners” instead. There’s a wonderful book about early Australian history called “The Fatal Shore”, I highly recommend reading it.

  It seems to me that most de jure heterosexual married couples do not refer to themselves as “partners”. Referring to one’s “partner”, to me, would signal that either they are gay or defactos. But often people will use “partner” as an umbrella term to describe anyone in a married-type relationship. (if any of that makes sense)

• Y says:

  November 2, 2008 at 1:25 pm

  Thanks for the heads up! But in actuality, the reason I wondered about the partner situation because a lot of 20-50 somethings that I have met while being here have referred to their legally married spouses as partners so I found that the most curious thing.

• Tors says:

  November 9, 2008 at 8:55 pm

  Hmmm that’s weird. Must be a Tassie thing! 😀

  (see, you can chalk just about anything up to being a Tassie thing. BTW, have you seen Young Einstein?)

• Y says:

  November 10, 2008 at 1:51 pm

  No I haven’t seen Young Einstein. I mentioned it to my hubby and he rolled his eyes and said “go ahead and rent it”. Not sure what that’s about. I must assume it’s about Tasmania and a not so smart person??

• Jennifer says:

  November 25, 2008 at 11:53 am

  Hi Y,
  Jen from YDU 🙂
  I’m in Tassie too … and I’ve picked up the “partner” habit for my spouse. I especially use it if I’m talking to someone in a business setting (like in interviews if someone asks why I moved to Australia I say because my partner is Australian). I guess sometimes I feel like I’m too young to be married (or at least I like to think so, ha ha, but I’m not so sure it’s true anymore! I’m 27 now, married at 24 tho) Husband sounds too grown up for me sometimes 😉

• Y says:

  November 28, 2008 at 12:07 pm

  Hi Jen! I understand how saying husband is kind of grown up! I still giggle at times when I say husband even though it’s been 5 years! But I don’t think I could wrap my lips around saying partner. That sounds weird to me. I’m still trying to get used to saying mobile instead of cell phone!

  Whereabouts Tassie are you?