mulier

1. Femina (φυομένη) denotes woman with regard to her physical nature and sex, as bringing forth, in opp. to mas; whereas mulier (from mollis), woman, in a physical point of view, as the weaker and more tender sex, in opp. to vir; whence femina only can be used for the female of an animal. 2. Mulier denotes also the married woman, in opp. to virgo, Cic. Verr. ii. 1; whereas uxor and conjux, the wife, in opp. to the husband; uxor, merely in relation to the man who has married her, in opp. to maritus, Tac. G. 18; conjux (from conjungere), in mutual relation to the husband, as half of a pair, and in opp. to liberi, Cic. Att. viii. 2. Catil. iii. 1. Liv. v. 39, 40. Tac. Ann. iv. 62. H. iii. 18. 67. Suet. Cal. 17. Accordingly, uxor belongs to the man; conjux is on a par with the man; uxor refers to an every-day marriage, like wife; conjux, to a marriage between people of rank, like consort. Vell. Pat. ii. 100. Claudius, Gracchus, Scipio, quasi cujuslibet uxore violata pœnas perpendere, quum Cæsaris filiam et Nerones violassent conjugem. 3. Uxor is the ordinary, marita a poetical, expression for a wife. (iv. 327.)