trophy wife

This article contains weasel words, vague phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information. Such statements should be clarified or removed. (May 2009)

A trophy wife is commonly used to describe a wife, usually young and attractive, regarded as a status symbol for the husband, often older and affluent.

History

The term trophy wife appeared in a 1950 issue of The Economist magazine^{[citation needed]}. It referred to the historical practice of warriors capturing the most beautiful women during battle to bring home as wives, even if most modern trophy wives are acquired through other means.

In 1971, the term appeared on page 115 of American Studies By University of Kansas, Midcontinent American Studies Association, Joyce and Elizabeth Hall Center for the Humanities (Published by University of Kansas., 1971) Item notes: v. 37-38; v. 45, nos. 1-3 Original from the University of Michigan and Digitized Sep 23, 2008 by Google.

William Safire claimed that the term trophy wife was coined by Julie Connelly, a senior editor of Fortune magazine, in a cover story in the issue of Aug. 28, 1989^[1] and immediately entered common usage.^{[citation needed]} Since the New York Times was one of the first newspapers to put their content online, this attribution of origin has become quite commonly accepted as fact.

Many sources claim the term was coined earlier (for example, the Online Etymology Dictionary cites 1984^[2]) but easy online access to William Safire's article about the term has led many to believe (such as Oxford English Dictionary) that August 28, 1989 was its first use.^[3]

Although it is often used pejoratively, the term originally referred to a corporate titan's second or third wife, who was younger and beautiful.^[4] As used by Fortune, a trophy wife was almost always intelligent and highly accomplished in her own right, aspects that are usually not incorporated by popular media. As such, in popular usage, a trophy wife is usually considered to be unintelligent and sometimes even a bimbo^{[citation needed]}, who is said to be drawn to her husband mainly because of his money and status.

Examples

The marriage of former Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith to oil billionaire, J. Howard Marshall was widely followed by the US mass media as an extreme example of this concept.^[5] At the time of their marriage, he was 89 years of age, she was 26.

See also

• Boy toy
• Erotic capital
• WAGs

Look up trophy wife in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

References

External links

• Alpha males forsake the trophy wife, article in the Sunday Times, stating that "Academics say they have found the first evidence that successful British males increasingly prefer a spouse with a high-powered job to one who stays at home with the children."
• http://www.t3.com/reviews/phones/mobile-phones/motorola-aura-mobile-phone-review T3 magazine in a review of the Motorola luxury "Aura" mobile phone model: "We think it’s best to think of the AURA as the trophy-wife of the phone world, it’s great to look at and bring to social occasions, but that’s about it."