I.e., the "house-band," connecting and keeping together the whole family. A man when betrothed was esteemed from that time a husband (Matthew 1:16, 20; Luke 2:5). A recently married man was exempt from going to war for "one year" (Deuteronomy 20:7; 24:5).

Noah Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language

1. (n.) The male spouse or (v. t.) To direct and manage with frugality.

2. (n.) A cultivator; a tiller; a husbandman.

3. (n.) One who manages or directs with prudence and economy; a frugal person; an economist.

4. (n.) A married man; a man who has a wife; -- the correlative to wife.

5. (n.) The male of a pair of animals.

6. (v. t.) To direct and manage with frugality; to use or employ to good purpose and the best advantage; to spend, apply, or use, with economy.

7. (v. t.) To cultivate, as land; to till.

8. (v. t.) To furnish with a husband.