wifehood

• wivehood

From Middle English wifhode, wifhod, wifhede, from Old English wīfhād (“femininity; the female sex”), equivalent to wife +‎ -hood.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈwʌɪfhʊd/

wifehood (usually uncountable, plural wifehoods)

1. The quality or state of being a wife.
2. The character or behaviour that befits a good wife; wifeliness.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.5:

     That girdle gave the vertue of chast love, / And wivehood true, to all that did it beare […].

• motherhood