She has the husband is not correct, as it implies that having a husband is exclusive— that in the current context, only one person can have a husband at the same time, and she is that person. If she has "the" husband, her friend in the same room cannot.
I venture to say this is true whenever "has" meaning "is in possession of" is coupled with the definitely article ("the"); for example, the expression "Smith has the floor" or "Smith has the mic[rophone]" means Smith currently holds the exclusive right to speak at an assembly. Scope and context is important here. If someone asks me why I can't drive somewhere and I explain that "my wife has the car," of course it doesn't mean there is only one car in the world. It means that there is only one car currently at my disposal, and my wife has it.
She has a husband is correct. It is true that one could infer multiple husbands, either in series (i.e. she is divorced or widowed) or in parallel (i.e. she is a polyandrist). In this case, "she had … a husband" but he may not be the same as her current husband. That we do not make such inferences is, I think cultural. English is a Western language, and the tradition in the West is marriage to only one person for life.
"She has husband" is not correct; any singular object of "has" requires an article. The article is omitted for plurals ("she has cars") or conditions or other abstract nouns which lack number ("she has access," "she has courage," "she has pneumonia").
Possessive case denotes:
°possession : Peter's book/a cat's whiskers
°authorship : Bacon's essays
° Relationship : a wolf's den; a girls'
school
In addition, we have to remember the concept of compound word, proper noun, common noun and by using possessive case who gains predominance.
Now coming to the examples:
Peter's book — no article(proper noun)
A cat's whiskers — article (common noun)
A women's magazine— article (compound word
;common noun)
A wolves' den, a girls' school are compound nouns in addition to being in possessive case; they refer to neither of the two words but to new words( new concept).Let they be viewed in this light.
But in an ' interesting magazine' or a 'prestigious school'— these are mere nouns with adjectivals.
GET RID OF HEAD WORD CONCEPT. THIS IS AT THE ROOT OF ALL THE TROUBLE.
This rejoinder is by way of an explanation of my submission above.
At the outset we like to mention the most important and most comprehensive principle of English syntax : words relate according to sense. This is at the core of all the rules of construction including that of use of articles before possessive.
All determiners (articles/possessives/numerics/demonstratives etc.) are essentially adjectives. This may sound over simplification but it is actually so. We name them differently because their functions are different.
Articles relate to the noun which they limit. It is an index pointing to that noun. An article precedes the noun and when an adjective (here possessive) precedes the noun, the article goes before the possessive and the article's power of limitation may extend over the possessive as well. Article together with the possessive becomes the governing word of the noun governed.
As a general rule before nouns in possessive case we don't use "the" if the noun does not take "the" under normal situation and we must remember that article " the " agrees with nouns in either number. Equally important is to remember that articles are used in the same way before possessive as before any noun that don't have an 's. However, the conjoined concept of article along with possessive may not be lost sight of.
To sum up, possessive nouns are also determiners; like articles they mark nouns; when they are together, their togetherness impacts the noun governed; possessive nouns differ from other determiners in the sense that they themselves often require determiners(articles are one as such). The examples are not analyzed again to avoid repetitions.
Best Answer
In general, when you use a countable noun in the singular, you must put some indication of quantity in front of it. When you use it in the plural, you may give a quantity or not. By "countable noun", I mean a noun that refers to something that can be counted, like dogs or bricks, as opposed to things like liquids that perhaps can be measured but not counted. By "indication of quantity" I mean a number, like "one" or "six"; an article, namely "a" or "the"; or some other word that indicates a quantity in some general sense, like "many" or "some".
In this case, "not a big deal" uses an article to express the quantity, namely, one. "No big deal" uses the word "no" to express the quantity, namely, zero.
So in your "stupid question" example (I'm referring to the example you give, not your question!), yes, you need an article or some other "quantity" word. Normally you would say, "That was too stupid a question" or "That was a stupid question".
Note that you don't necessarily need a quantity when you use the plural. For example in the singular you cannot say, "There was dog in the room", you must say, "There was a dog in the room" or "There was one dog in the room". But in the plural you can say, "There were dogs in the room." You CAN give a quantity, like "There were two dogs in the room" or "There were many dogs in the room", but you don't have to. (I have no idea why this is so. It's just the rule.)