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はてなキーワード: お言葉ですが…とは
山口瞳のエッセイが出典ではね。新渡戸稲造は『武士道』でこう書いている。
I have noticed a rather superficial notion prevailing among half-informed foreigners, that because the common Japanese expression for one's wife is "my rustic wife" and the like, she is despised and held in little esteem. When it is told that such phrases as "my foolish father," "my swinish son," "my awkward self," etc., are in current use, is not the answer clear enough?
To me it seems that our idea of marital union goes in some ways further than the so-called Christian. "Man and woman shall be one flesh." The individualism of the Anglo-Saxon cannot let go of the idea that husband and wife are two persons;—hence when they disagree, their separate rights are recognized, and when they agree, they exhaust their vocabulary in all sorts of silly pet-names and—nonsensical blandishments. It sounds highly irrational to our ears, when a husband or wife speaks to a third party of his other half—better or worse—as being lovely, bright, kind, and what not. Is it good taste to speak of one's self as "my bright self," "my lovely disposition," and so forth? We think praising one's own wife or one's own husband is praising a part of one's own self, and self-praise is regarded, to say the least, as bad taste among us,—and I hope, among Christian nations too! I have diverged at some length because the polite debasement of one's consort was a usage most in vogue among the samurai.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12096/12096-h/12096-h.htm
これは有名な一節である。「武士や多くの日本人は、自慢や傲慢を嫌い忠義を信条としたことに触れ、家族や身内のことでさえも愚妻や愚弟と呼ぶが、これらは自分自身と同一の存在として相手に対する謙譲の心の現れであって、この機微は外国人には理解できないものであろう」といった意味。
なお『武士道』の初版は1899年。「戦後あたりから間違った意味で使われるようになった」というおまえの説と矛盾する。新渡戸稲造によるとWe think praising one's own wife or one's own husband is praising a part of one's own self（おのれの妻や夫を褒めるのはおのれ自身の一部を褒めることだと、我々は考える）というのだ。だからmy rustic wife（愚妻）のような表現を使うのだ、と新渡戸は言っている。したがって─
高島俊男さんの「お言葉ですが…２」では、「愚」はわたしの意味だと説明した上で、実はこのような一人称二人称という発想は西洋人の発想だとことわり、日本人の発想は、「こちら側」と「あちら側」に分けるのだという。
http://takusen2.seesaa.net/category/1656458-1.html
これも「こちら側」にいる私と妻をまとめて「愚」と呼んでいる、と読むのが正確だろう。
もっとも、高島説でも新渡戸説でも「どうして自分の師匠を『愚師』とは呼ばないのか」という問題は説明がつかない。門弟から見れば師匠は「こちら側」だ。
