Dayouth

{{short description|Arabic-Islamic term for a cuckold}}

Dayouth or dayyuth ({{langx|ar|دَيُّوث}}) is an Arabic-derived term for a person who is apathetic or permissive with regard to adulterous behaviour from a spouse.Sallo, Ibrahim Khidhir. "A Sociolinguistic Study of Sex Differences in Mosuli Arabic in Mosul-Iraq".{{Cite book|last=Shahawi|first=Majdi Muhammad Ash|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3dJNBQAAQBAJ&q=ghairah+dayyuth&pg=PT40|title=Marital Discord – Causes & Cures|date=2004|publisher=Darussalam Publishers|language=en}} There are many variations in how dayouth is spelled, including dayyuth, dayuuth, dayoos, or dayooth. Related terms in English may include cuckold or wittold.{{Cite journal|last=Semerdjian|first=Elyse|date=2012-03-01|title='Because he is so tender and pretty': sexual deviance and heresy in eighteenth-century Aleppo|journal=Social Identities|volume=18|issue=2|pages=175–199|doi=10.1080/13504630.2012.652844|s2cid=145004098|issn=1350-4630}}

The term dayouth has historically held religious, legal and familial implications, depending on time and region, especially if a liaison results in pregnancy. Arabs of various religions often conceive the concept of the dayouth in a negative light, either personally or scripturally. The term has also permeated into populations that have religious denominations with such explications (such as Islamic jurisprudence) or geographically adjacent populations where the term is in usage.{{Cite book|last=Atighetchi|first=Dariusch|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Tdm9V89lW3IC|title=Islamic Bioethics: Problems and Perspectives|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media|year=2006|isbn=978-1-4020-4962-0|pages=135–159|language=en|chapter=Assisted Procreation}}

The public perception within non-Arab communities that have adopted the notion of the dayouth as a loan-word varies. This ranges from criticism of its usage as a pejorative being suggestive of acceptance of vain paternalistic gender roles, stigmatization of sexuality or overprotective intrusive sexual gatekeeping within a household and thereby an approval of patronization, to acceptance of its usage in instances where there is an affront to modesty or the archetype of religiously inspired abstinence.{{Cite journal|last=Hamamra|first=Bilal Tawfiq|date=2018-04-03|title=The Containment of Female Linguistic, Spatial, and Sexual Transgression in Arden of Faversham: A Contemporary Palestinian Reading|journal=Comparative Literature: East & West|language=en|volume=2|issue=2|pages=88–100|doi=10.1080/25723618.2018.1546474|issn=2572-3618|doi-access=free}}