- English translation
What passes between a husband and wife stays hidden, just as no one sees what goes on inside a grave.
- Literal wording
The man and his wife are like the grave and its doings.
- Meaning and lesson
The saying compares a married couple to a grave: whatever happens inside stays sealed away from the living. In the same way, the quarrels and confidences shared by a husband and wife should stay within their relationship rather than become public knowledge.
The grave image makes privacy unusually emphatic: outsiders are not meant to learn either the couple’s disagreements or their confidences. Unlike advice merely to avoid gossip, the saying calls for keeping what happens between spouses out of public view, even when their relationship is strained.
- When it is used
Use when urging a couple to keep their disagreements and personal affairs to themselves, or when gently discouraging relatives or friends from prying into a marriage. It concerns marital discretion specifically, not relationships in general, and fits informal advice and family conversation.
- Register
- Colloquial Arabic
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
Report an issue with this meaning: What passes between a husband and wife stays hidden, just as no one sees what goes on inside a grave.