A new study suggests that, for modern Japanese speakers, two traditional, patriarchal words for "husband" ("shujin," literally meaning "master") and "wife" ("kanai," "inside-the-house") may be losing their original meanings, though men in the study evaluated both traditional and neutral words for "husband" more positively than words for "wife." Ri Nin and Kazuo Mori of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Japan, present these findings in the open access journal PLOS One on June 3, 2026.
The literal meanings of shujin and kanai reflect Japan's historically traditional male-dominant spousal roles: the husband as master of the house with the wife belonging inside it. Despite concerns that these words may help perpetuate harmful patriarchal roles, recent surveys suggest that they are more commonly used than any other Japanese words for "husband" and "wife."
However, few studies have explored the psychological mechanisms involved in usage patterns of gender-related words. To address that gap, Nin and Mori conducted a study involving 246 undergraduate, Japanese-speaking students. Participants were asked to complete a previously-developed test designed to evaluate their implicit associations with the words "shujin" and "kanai", as well as, for comparison, the more neutral terms "otto" ("husband") and "tsuma" ("wife").
Analysis of the test results showed that positive-versus-negative attitudes towards the traditional words shujin and kanai were similar to attitudes towards otto and tsuma. This finding suggests that shujin and kanai may no longer evoke their literal meanings and are now perceived as more neutral.
However, men in the study tended to rate both the traditional and neutral words for "husband"—shujin and otto—more positively than both words for "wife." Women in the study did not show this bias. These findings suggest that, while the male-dominant literal meanings of shujin and kanai may no longer strongly activate hierarchical associations, subconscious gender-related asymmetries may persist, especially among men.
Future research could address some of this study's limitations, such as by including participants from broader age groups, sociocultural contexts, and educational backgrounds, as well as exploring how the psychology of gender-related language evolves over time and in different cultures.
The authors add: "We used a paper-and-pencil Implicit Association Test to measure the automatic processing speed of the terms "shujin" and "kanai", and compared them with more neutral Japanese spousal terms such as "otto" and "tsuma". Surprisingly, there was very little difference between them. "Shujin" and "kanai" have largely lost their original literal meanings, and are now processed almost the same way as ordinary words for husband and wife in everyday automatic language use."
"We found that, while the bias had largely disappeared among female students, male students still showed similarly strong male-centered associations for both the traditional and the neutral terms."
In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS One: https://plos.io/3RdLwQ
Citation: Nin R, Mori K (2026) Are Japanese spousal terms as gender-biased as they seem? An examination using implicit association measures. PLoS One 21(6): e0330816. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0330816
Author countries: Japan.
Funding: Grant-in-Aid from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (KAKENHI No. 25K06689).
