At 09:58 PM 5/10/01 -0000, Jenny Kaye wrote:
My wife is not the same as "my woman".
Which might be because she's not his wife -- for any of a number of reasons (prohibitions against marriage in their grade; one of them in a situation where s/he's not free to marry because of family obligations or pre-existing marriage or financial inability to support a spouse). When I hear "my woman," it connotes a degree of intimacy/closeness beyond "my girlfriend" -- the kind of closeness he'd have with a woman he wanted to marry but hadn't; at the same time, the term doesn't foreground the physical relationship the way "my lover" would. And not elaborating on the details seems in keeping both with Gan and the scene: it's not a confess-all-the-details situation, but a brief explanation.
And in most of the songs about "my man," as you say, "my man" is an absolute bastard who goes around mistreating women [...]
And a rock and roll song, from the Beatles:
"I used to be cruel to *my woman* I'd beat her and keep her away from the things that she loved. Man I was mean but I'm changing my scene..."
But one of Lennon's greatest love songs is titled "Woman" and conveys the opposite attitude :
"Woman I know you understand The little child inside the man, Please remember my life is in your hands, And woman hold me close to your heart, However, distant don't keep us apart,"
--DDJ