office wife

n. a female secretary or executive assistant; a female worker devoted to a powerful man to whom she is not married, especially a man in a hierarchically superior position; a female coworker who is a friend. Also office spouse, work wife. Subjects: English, Business

Editorial Note: The term office husband or uses of office spouse in which the “spouse” is male are less common.

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Citations: 1923 Faye Stevenson Lincoln State Journal (Neb.) (July 30) “Fifty-Fifty” p. 2: “I’m not very much pleased with the way you and Ted Jones and Jim Farrel cut up. They call you ‘our office wife’ and act as if they had known you all their lives.” “Office wife?” repeated Helen, “well what of it? Every modern girl laughs at that. Haven’t you a spark of humor?” 1926 Achmed Abdullah Oakland Tribune (California) (Sept. 5) “Ruth’s Rebellion” p. S5: The office wife sees a man—well—different from the way the home wife sees him. 1940 Lawrence Gould Port Arthur News (Texas) (Sept. 1) “The Case For The ‘Office Wife’” p. 20: The real “office wife” is not a sweetheart; she’s exclusively a helpmate—a girl or a woman who does everything but breathe for a man with whom her relations are apt to be so impersonal as to be almost inhuman. 1979 Ellen Sawesky Globe and Mail (Toronto, Can.) (Apr. 7) “Women and work” p. P7: I think we need to redefine secretary. Is she an office wife, i.e., servant, as so many think? 1981 Georgia Dullea New York Times (Jan. 2) “Secretaries See Parallels In ‘Nine To Five’”: Then there is the “office wife” role that the woman behind the typewriter or the data machine or the steno pad is somehow expected to perform…duties that never appear on a job description. A secretary must be a waitress, they say, who serves coffee and snacks to the boss; a personal shopper, who buys birthday presents for the wife; a nurse, who administers his eyedrops; a maid, who tends plants and dusts. 1991 Maureen McLaughlin Milwaukee Journal (Wisc.) (Apr. 24) “Roses not enough: Show respect, secretaries say” p. C9: The role of a secretary is dramatically changing from the days of the “office spouse” and secretaries are no longer just typing, filing and answering the phone. 2001 [Dr. Prawn] Usenet: alt.support.childfree (June 18) “Re: Hooray for the Simpsons!”: I know of at least one other editor here (my “work wife”) who does reading and marking on a regular basis and is decidedly CF (there’s a topic: If you have a “work spouse” in addition to your usual SO, is he/she CF as well?). 2001 Sarah Baxter Sunday Times (London, England) (Sept. 9) “Miss Smith takes down her last letter”: Middle managers are being forced to give up their “office wives” as technology threatens the traditional secretary with extinction. A new breed of “executary” who is more interested in managing budgets than in reminding her boss of his wedding anniversary is taking charge of Britain’s offices. 2005 Susan Bourette Globe and Mail (Toronton, Can.) (Aug. 26) “10 dirty secrets of a Bay Street temp” p. 29: To my mind, a private secretary is an “office wife” for some eight hours of a man’s day. She should give him subtle encouragement, approval, admiration, respect. She should laugh at his jokes, overlook his faults and moods, and assure him of her loyalty in unspoken ways. 2005 Pip Cummings Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) (Aug. 27) “Love your work” p. 12: Almost one in five (of 2000) respondents said they had a work husband or wife, with a quarter of chief executives who contributed to the research identifying with having a work spouse. “We’re talking about non-sexual relationships.…We’re talking very much about intimate relationships in the true meaning of the word intimate.” 2005 Peggy Noonan OpinionJournal.com (Oct. 13) “Fasten Your Beltway”: Harriet Miers can withdraw her name, take the hit, and let the president’s protectors throw him in the car. Her toughness and professionalism would appear wholly admirable. She’d not just survive; she’d flourish, going from much-spoofed office wife to world-famous lawyer and world-class friend.

Posted 16 Nov 05 | Permalink | Tell a Friend

Reader comments:

Among people I know, the term “office husband” is used just as frequently as “office wife” and, like the roles of most husbands and wives in the 21st century, is complex, and unrelated to specific hierarchical positions. It’s a person of the opposite sex (or the same sex, if you are gay) with whom you have a close daily interdependent relationship, except that it only takes place in the confines of the office and does not involve sex.

by Porousness 21 Nov 05, 0301 GMT