女房

1. Origins, structure, and basic meaning

• Structure: 女房 is read as にょうぼう and is a conversational, somewhat old-fashioned noun used to refer to one's own wife.
• Basic usage: Use 女房と相談する for consulting one's wife and 女房との出会い for the event of meeting her.

2. Common pitfalls and similar expressions

• Register and referent
  • It is more conversational than neutral 妻 and may sound rough or dated, so the setting and speaker matter.
• Referring to another person's spouse
  • It normally refers to the speaker's own wife and should not be used unchanged as a polite term for someone else's wife.