As I said:



The authors of the various Biblical books were wise enough to know what most everyone else does: after the honeymoon is over, the marriage is a mixed bag. Some things are good, some aren't, and a lasting marriage has far more of the good things and far fewer of the bad, but there's never a "perfect" one.

By keeping the phraseology as "bride", the authors uniformly keep the relationship in its pristine and most joyous condition.

The distinction is a very important one, not a trivial one.

As for what Jesus says in the fragment that supposedly says, "My wife...", we don't know, because the fragment conveniently ends after that. The two letters that are present, "mn" with a line over them indicating a shewa-like vowel quantity, could be several things: (1) "with" (by itself), (2) "not" (as a prefix), (3) the first letters of words like mnout, "doorkeeper" or (more likely) mntre "witness" (or, in the Christian sense, martyr).

I have problems with the text, though, because the word for "wife" uses a non-standard spelling, the "my" part is darker and almost looks like it was added later, and more importantly the particle that usually sets off direct speech is missing. I just think that it might be:

peje IC nau je hime mn
Jesus said to them, "A woman with..."

or

peje IC je shime mn
Jesus said "A woman with..."