妻

Bottom 女 is the indexing radical, preserved through millennia of script change. It anchors 妻 in the family of female-relation terms: 妈, 姐, 妹, 婆, 姑.

The top five strokes are the fused remnant of an original 又 'hand' gripping hair-strands above 女. Oracle-bone forms showed a hand pulling a kneeling woman's hair, a stark image of marriage-by-capture in early society. The modern shape collapses these into a stylized cluster that no longer reads transparently.