Several parts combine into one character.

妻 is a compound ideograph: at the top, a hand (又) holding a comb (a hair-styling tool); at the bottom, 女 (woman). The composite reads as "a woman who has had her hair groomed and combed up" = a wife. The character preserves the ancient East Asian marriage custom in which a young woman's hair was ceremonially put up (rather than worn down as a girl) to mark her transition to married status. The same hair-styling motif lies behind East Asian wedding traditions and the Confucian distinction between unmarried and married women.

妻 forms the canonical pair with 夫 (husband), creating the 夫妻 (couple) framework that organizes traditional CJK marriage vocabulary.

Korean reading "cheo." 夫妻 (bucheo, husband and wife — formal), 妻子 (cheoja, "wife and children" = one's family / one's dependents — used in classical phrases: 처자식 cheoja-sik "wife and kids"), 愛妻 (aecheo, "beloved wife" — used in 애처가 aecheoga "devoted husband"), 賢妻 (hyeoncheo, wise / virtuous wife — Confucian compliment). Modern colloquial Korean uses (anae, native word) for "wife" in everyday speech.

Mandarin qī, 1st tone. 妻 (qī), 夫妻 (fūqī, husband and wife), 妻子 (qīzi, "wife-child" — note the meaning is just "wife," not "wife and child"; the 子 here is a noun-suffix, not "child"), 前妻 (qiánqī, "previous wife" = ex-wife). Mandarin distinguishes 妻子 (qīzi, wife) from 老婆 (lǎopó, "old wife" — colloquial for one's wife, used affectionately or familiarly): formal vs casual register.

Japanese on-reading サイ (sai) — 妻子 (saishi, wife and children — meaning all family dependents, unlike Mandarin), 夫妻 (fusai, husband and wife — formal), 愛妻 (aisai, beloved wife — used in 愛妻家 aisaika "devoted husband"). Kun-reading つま (tsuma) is the everyday word: 妻 (tsuma, one's own wife — used by men referring to their wives in standard polite Japanese). Japanese makes a delicate distinction in wife-vocabulary: 妻 (tsuma) for one's own wife, 奥さん (okusan, "honored interior person") for someone else's wife. Saying 私の奥さん about your own wife sounds odd; the proper register is 私の妻.

Memory aid: a hand combing the hair (top) of a woman (女 below) — the wife with hair ceremonially put up in marriage.