What Does "Blood Is Thicker Than Water" Really Mean?

You remember that one time when you really wanted to spend Friday night with your friends, staying up late, watching terrible movies and just blowing off steam from the stress of the week, but you were told in no uncertain terms that you were going to your sister's recital. No matter what logical arguments you could come up with as to why you should be excused from this family outing (you being there won't make the music any better, you've already heard the performance dozens of times thanks to her incessant practicing, your sister actually swore a vow to kill you the next time she saw you), the elders probably intoned some version of the phrase, "blood is thicker than water," to still any further protestations on your part.

And it probably worked. You heaved a sigh, stopped arguing, put on your suit, and went to the recital, even though you knew as soon as she was done playing, you'd have to duel with Margaret because she never breaks a vow. We get it. Friends come and go, but the people we're related to (for better or worse) are going to be a part of our lives for a long, long time. So, when push comes to shove, you have to stand with your clan because that's the way it's always been.

Is That The Only Interpretation?

There is a lot of misunderstanding on this phrase because, like most well-used parts of language, it has been changed and added to over the years.

The original, Medieval proverb can be traced back to Germany in the 12th century, and it basically means what we all think it means. Your family is closer and more important than those who are not your kin… though there is also an additional interpretation that the bonds of kin are stronger than the sea, which would have implied they overcame the distance created by mastering the waves. The meaning of this phrase remained the same all the way up to 1670, when it was collected into a book of proverbs by John Ray, and into the 1700s where it was found in works by Scottish author John Moore.

The change to how the phrase might actually be interpreted seems to be fairly recent.

It actually seems to be Aldous Huxley, the author of Brave New World, who approached the phrase differently in his work Ninth Philosopher’s Song. According to Wikipedia, his interpretation read, “Blood, as all men know, than water’s thicker / But water’s wider, thank the lord, than blood.”

More modern commentators, Albert Jack and Richard Pustelniak, claim that a fuller proverb would say, "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb." This is the phrase that winds up in a bunch of different lists all over the Internet, but it’s hard to find any older proverb Jack and Pustelniak are quoting that implies the relationships you choose will be more important to you, and that shared experiences will bring you closer than the happenstance that made you a part of a particular family.

And as they say, if you have no source, then it didn't happen.

That doesn’t make the idea wrong,of course. People who have shed blood together, particularly in a literal sense, do tend to develop powerful bonds. For soldiers who served together, particularly when the spear and the sword were standard-issue weapons, this meant you probably walked away from the battlefield covered in your own blood, the enemy's blood, and the blood of your comrades. Even if you were an archer, facing the dangers of combat together meant you and your fellow soldiers were now more than friends.

But that is not what the original phrase is talking about. It’s a medieval proverb after all, and it holds pretty strongly to the idea that your blood (at least at that time) was more important than the friends you would make, or the covenants you would enter into with others.

With that said, though, times do change. As social norms alter, and we alter our metrics for who we give priority to, the idea of familial bonds based on blood rather than shared friendship and strength is something we see falling out of favor. So while there may not be an ancient proverb we've been misinterpreting that said you can choose your own family, there’s nothing to say we can’t actually do that in today’s day and age if we so choose to.

Would You Like To Know More?

If you're curious about other quirks of language, such as the origin of the names for the days of the week, or odd historical facts such as how the pirate code was actually a real thing, then take a moment to stop in and check out my full Vocal archive!