Goodwife

rdf:langString Goodwife

rdf:langString Goodwife (Scots: Guidwife), usually abbreviated Goody, was a polite form of address for women, formerly used where "Mrs.", "Miss" and "Ms." would be used today. Its male counterpart is Goodman. However, a woman addressed by this title was of a lesser social rank than a woman addressed as Mistress. "Goodwife" and "Goody" were used in England, Scotland, and Colonial America, with the earliest known use circa 1325. By the mid-18th century they had become archaic outside Scotland, and they are perhaps best known today as the forms of address used in Arthur Miller's historical fiction The Crucible, in Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "Young Goodman Brown", the novels Magnus by George Mackay Brown, The Witch of Blackbird Pond (name Goodwife Cruff) by Elizabeth George Speare, and Mossflower by Brian Jacques. The title also appears in the expression "Goody Two-Shoes", which is sometimes credited to the 1765 children's book The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes, though it was first used at least a century earlier.