Paris Day 5: Why woman and wife are the same word in French

Une femme = a woman. Un homme = a man (I think there may be an apostraphe, but I'm not sure)
Ma femme = my wife (or literaly, my woman). Mon mari = my husband

Christine generally uses issues or situations to help us learn French. Today we talked about possesives, and different types of living spaces. My/your/their/etc mother/father/etc, lives in a(n) apartment/house/condo/etc.

As of 2002, France's divorce rate is 38.3% of marriages. And since divorces are so costly and lengthy here, more and more people are just living together, forming what I guess are common-law marriages. Christine used a term, which I think sounded something like "Pax," but I could be entirely wrong.

Then again, the US divorce rate was 45.8%. That's one thing that we beat the French at ...