A stepmother , stepmum or stepmom is a female non-biological parent married to one's preexisting parent. Children from her spouse's previous unions are known as her stepchildren . A stepmother-in-law is a stepmother of one's spouse.
80-460: A mother is the female parent of a child . A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given birth , by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring , or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the case of gestational surrogacy . A biological mother is the female genetic contributor to the creation of the infant, through sexual intercourse or egg donation . A biological mother may have legal obligations to
160-401: A cell splits itself in half. From a strict numbers perspective, a species that is half males/half females can produce half the offspring an asexual population can, because only the females are having offspring. Being male can also carry significant costs, such as in flashy sexual displays in animals (such as big antlers or colorful feathers), or needing to produce an outsized amount of pollen as
240-543: A " mommy track " rather than being entirely " career women ". Mothers may be stay at home mothers or working mothers . In recent decades there has been an increase in stay at home fathers too. Social views on these arrangements vary significantly by culture: in Europe for instance, in German-speaking countries there is a strong tradition of mothers exiting the workforce and being homemakers. Mothers have historically fulfilled
320-432: A child not raised by her, such as an obligation of monetary support. An adoptive mother is a female who has become the child's parent through the legal process of adoption . A putative mother is a female whose biological relationship to a child is alleged but has not been established. A stepmother is a non-biological female parent married to a child's preexisting parent, and may form a family unit but generally does not have
400-507: A child that she is not the biological mother of. Surrogate motherhood became possible with advances in reproductive technologies , such as in vitro fertilization . Not all women who become pregnant via in vitro fertilization are surrogate mothers. Surrogacy involves both a genetic mother, who provides the ovum, and a gestational (or surrogate) mother, who carries the child to term. The possibility for lesbian and bisexual women in same-sex relationships to become mothers has increased over
480-524: A child's father ). The term " othermother " or "other mother" is also used in some contexts for women who provide care for a child not biologically their own in addition to the child's primary mother. Adoption, in various forms, has been practiced throughout history, even predating human civilization. Modern systems of adoption, arising in the 20th century, tend to be governed by comprehensive statutes and regulations . In recent decades, international adoptions have become more and more common. Adoption in
560-407: A child, or to provide care for a child, from which also derives the noun "mothering". Related terms of endearment are mom ( mama , mommy ), mum ( mummy ), mumsy , mamacita ( ma , mam ) and mammy . A female role model that children can look up to is sometimes referred to as a mother-figure . Biological motherhood for humans , as in other mammals , occurs when a pregnant female gestates
640-509: A female sex vary between different species, having different female reproductive systems , with some species showing characteristics secondary to the reproductive system , as with mammary glands in mammals. In humans, the word female can also be used to refer to gender in the social sense of gender role or gender identity . The word female comes from the Latin femella , the diminutive form of femina , meaning " woman ", by way of
720-416: A fertilized ovum (the "egg"). A female can become pregnant through sexual intercourse after she has begun to ovulate . In well-nourished girls, menarche (the first menstrual period ) usually takes place around the age of 12 or 13. Typically, a fetus develops from the viable zygote , resulting in an embryo . Gestation occurs in the woman's uterus until the fetus (assuming it is carried to term )
800-545: A few species. Anisogamy appears to have evolved multiple times from isogamy; for example female Volvocales (a type of green algae) evolved from the plus mating type . Although sexual evolution emerged at least 1.2 billion years ago, the lack of anisogamous fossil records make it hard to pinpoint when females evolved. Female sex organs (genitalia, in animals) have an extreme range of variation among species and even within species. The evolution of female genitalia remains poorly understood compared to male genitalia, reflecting
880-480: A history of domestic abuse are slightly more likely to commit filicide. Mothers are more likely to commit filicide than fathers when the child is 8 years old or younger. Matricide is most frequently committed by adult sons. In the United States in 2012, there were 130 matricides (0.4 per million people) and 383 filicides (1.2 per million), or 1.4 incidents per day. Throughout history, mothers have been depicted in
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#1732837801602960-407: A mother fills many similar biological functions as a human mother. Many other mammal mothers also have numerous commonalities with humans. The behavior and role of mothers in non-human species is most similar in species most closely related to humans. This means great apes are most similar, then the broader superfamily of all apes , then all primates . Female An organism 's sex
1040-530: A now-outdated belief that female genitalia are less varied than male genitalia, and thus less useful to study. The difficulty of reaching female genitalia has also complicated their study. New 3D technology has made female genital study simpler. Genitalia evolve very quickly. There are three main hypotheses as to what impacts female genital evolution: lock-and-key (genitals must fit together), cryptic female choice (females affect whether males can fertilize them), and sexual conflict (a sort of sexual arms race). There
1120-599: A partner by utilizing their sperm to fertilize an egg and form an embryo. For transgender women, there is currently no accessible way to carry a child. However, research is being done on uterus transplants , which could potentially allow transgender women to carry and give birth to children through Caesarean section . Other types of motherhood include adoption or foster parenting. However, adoption agencies often refuse to work with transgender parents or are reluctant to do so. The social roles associated with motherhood are variable across time, culture, and social class. Historically,
1200-428: A plant in order to get a chance to fertilize a female. Yet despite the costs of being male, there must be some advantage to the process. The advantages are explained by the evolution of anisogamy , which led to the evolution of male and female function. Before the evolution of anisogamy, mating types in a species were isogamous : the same size and both could move, catalogued only as "+" or "-" types. In anisogamy,
1280-597: A small cross underneath, is commonly used to represent females. Joseph Justus Scaliger once speculated that the symbol was associated with Venus, goddess of beauty , because it resembles a bronze mirror with a handle, but modern scholars consider that fanciful, and the most established view is that the female and male symbols derive from contractions in Greek script of the Greek names of the planets Thouros (Mars) and Phosphoros (Venus). Stepmother Stepparents (mainly stepmothers) may also face some societal challenges due to
1360-442: A strong social stigma . Historically, this stigma not only applied to the mother, but also to her child. This continues to be the case in many parts of the developing world today, but in many Western countries the situation has changed radically, with single motherhood being much more socially acceptable now. For more details on these subjects, see Legitimacy (family law) and single parent . The total fertility rate (TFR), that is,
1440-554: A variety of art works, including paintings, sculptures and written texts, that have helped define the cultural meaning of 'mother', as well as ideals and taboos of motherhood. Fourth century grave reliefs on the island of Rhodes depicted mothers with children. Paintings of mothers with their children have a long tradition in France . In the 18th century, these works embodied the Enlightenment's preoccupation with strong family bonds and
1520-406: Is Mary Kelly's Post-Partum Document . Bypassing typical themes of tenderness or nostalgia, this work documents in extensive detail the challenges, complexities and day-to-day realities of the mother-child relationship. Other artists have addressed similar aspects of motherhood that fall outside dominant ideals, including maternal ambivalence, desire, and the pursuit of self-fulfillment. While
1600-691: Is female ( symbol : ♀ ) if it produces the ovum (egg cell), the type of gamete (sex cell) that fuses with the male gamete (sperm cell) during sexual reproduction . A female has larger gametes than a male . Females and males are results of the anisogamous reproduction system , wherein gametes are of different sizes (unlike isogamy where they are the same size). The exact mechanism of female gamete evolution remains unknown. In species that have males and females, sex-determination may be based on either sex chromosomes , or environmental conditions. Most female mammals , including female humans , have two X chromosomes . Characteristics of organisms with
1680-406: Is also a hypothesis that female genital evolution is the result of pleiotropy , i.e. unrelated genes that are affected by environmental conditions like low food also affect genitals. This hypothesis is unlikely to apply to a significant number of species, but natural selection in general has some role in female genital evolution. The symbol ♀ ( Unicode : U+2640 Alt codes : Alt+12), a circle with
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#17328378016021760-517: Is also possible in a variety of species, including humans, to have other karyotypes . During reproduction , the male contributes either an X sperm or a Y sperm, while the female always contributes an X egg. A Y sperm and an X egg produce a male, while an X sperm and an X egg produce a female. The ZW sex-determination system , where females have ZW (as opposed to ZZ in males) sex chromosomes, is found in birds, reptiles and some insects and other organisms. The young of some species develop into one sex or
1840-425: Is better suited to support very young children in their efforts to understand speech (in context of the reference English) than fathers. Since the 1970s, in vitro fertilization has made pregnancy possible at ages well beyond "natural" limits, generating ethical controversy and forcing significant changes in the social meaning of motherhood. This is, however, a position highly biased by Western world locality: outside
1920-421: Is called trioecy . In Thor manningi (a species of shrimp), females coexist with males and protandrous hermaphrodites . A distinguishing characteristic of the class Mammalia is the presence of mammary glands . Mammary glands are modified sweat glands that produce milk, which is used to feed the young for some time after birth. Only mammals produce milk . Mammary glands are obvious in humans , because
2000-524: Is defined by WHO as "the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management but not from accidental or incidental causes". About 56% of maternal deaths occur in Sub-Saharan Africa and another 29% in South Asia . In 2006, the organization Save
2080-424: Is from Middle English moder, from Old English mōdor, from Proto-Germanic *mōdēr (cf. East Frisian muur, Dutch moeder, German Mutter), from Proto-Indo-European *méh₂tēr (cf. Irish máthair, Tocharian A mācar, B mācer, Lithuanian mótė). Other cognates include Latin māter, Greek μήτηρ, Common Slavic *mati (thence Russian мать (mat')), Persian مادر (madar), and Sanskrit मातृ (mātṛ). In zoology , particularly in mammals ,
2160-514: Is known that stepmothers are evil, the actual stepmother is guilty of nothing more than some carelessness, to Erma Bombeck 's retelling where Cinderella is lazy and a liar. More subtly, Piers Anthony depicted the Princess Threnody as being cursed by her stepmother in Crewel Lye: A Caustic Yarn : if she ever entered Castle Roogna, it would fall down. But Threnody explains that her presence at
2240-573: Is shown later on when Giselle marries that girl's father, who had her from a previous marriage, thus becoming a stepmother herself. As Giselle is a sweet and caring woman, she makes a good wife and stepmother. However, it is notable that during much of that film, Giselle was more of an older sister figure than a maternal figure to that little girl. In the movie Nanny McPhee a group of children worry that their father will remarry, believing from their fairy tales that all stepmothers are an "evil breed." Although they help their father marry again to help keep
2320-408: Is sufficiently developed to be born. In humans, gestation is often around 9 months in duration, after which the woman experiences labor and gives birth. This is not always the case, however, as some babies are born prematurely , late, or in the case of stillbirth , do not survive gestation. Usually, once the baby is born, the mother produces milk via the lactation process. The mother's breast milk
2400-679: Is suggested by peculiar wording in John Gamble's "An Irish Wake" (1826). He writes of a woman soon to die, who instructs her successor to "be kind to my children." Gamble writes that the injunction was forgotten and that she "proved a very step-mother." Fairy tales can have variants where one tale has an evil mother and the other an evil stepmother: in The Six Swans by the Brothers Grimm and also in The Wild Swans by Hans Christian Andersen ,
2480-459: Is the default sex, while in the poplar genus Populus the default is male. The sex of a particular organism may be determined by genetic or environmental factors, or may naturally change during the course of an organism's life. The sex of most mammals, including humans, is genetically determined by the XY sex-determination system where females have XX (as opposed to XY in males) sex chromosomes . It
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2560-411: Is the junior brother; the king pardoned them both for her devotion to duty. The ubiquity of the wicked stepmother has made it a frequent theme of revisionist fairy tale fantasy . This can range from Tanith Lee 's Red as Blood , where the stepmother queen is desperately trying to protect the land from her evil stepdaughter's magic, to Diana Wynne Jones 's Howl's Moving Castle , where, although it
2640-600: Is the source of antibodies for the infant's immune system , and commonly the sole source of nutrition for newborns before they are able to eat and digest other foods; older infants and toddlers may continue to be breastfed, in combination with other foods, which should be introduced from approximately six months of age. Childlessness is the state of not having children. Childlessness may have personal, social or political significance. Childlessness may be voluntary childlessness , which occurs by choice, or may be involuntary due to health problems or social circumstances. Motherhood
2720-453: Is usually voluntary, but may also be the result of forced pregnancy , such as pregnancy from rape . Unwanted motherhood occurs especially in cultures which practice forced marriage and child marriage . Mother can often apply to a woman other than the biological parent, especially if she fulfills the main social role in raising the child. This is commonly either an adoptive mother or a stepmother (the biologically unrelated partner of
2800-634: The Brothers Grimm version of Cinderella , where Aschenputtel receives her clothing from a tree growing on her mother's grave, the Russian Vasilissa the Beautiful , where Vasilissa is aided by a doll her mother gave, and her mother's blessing, and the Malay Bawang Putih Bawang Merah , where the heroine's mother comes back as fish to protect her. The notion of the word stepmother being descriptive of an intrinsically unkind parent
2880-514: The Virgin Mary , an archetypal mother and a key historical basis for depictions of mothers in western art from the European Renaissance onwards. Mothers depicted in dominant art works are also primarily white, heterosexual, middle class and young or attractive. These ideals of motherhood have been challenged by artists with lived experience as mothers. An example in western contemporary art
2960-434: The "evil stepmother" belief, as the villainess is a stepmother, but her wickedness comes from her selfishness and power hungriness rather than the simple fact she is a stepmother. When a little girl tells the heroine Giselle that all stepmothers are evil, Giselle reminds her that she personally knows some wonderful women who were good stepmothers, and the fact a woman is a stepmother does not suddenly change her personality. This
3040-482: The "institution of motherhood" rather than diverse lived experiences. At the same time, art concerning motherhood has been historically marginalized within the feminist art movement , though this is changing with an increasing number of feminist publications addressing this topic. The institution of motherhood in western art is often depicted through "the myth of the all-loving, all-forgiving and all-sacrificing mother" and related ideals. Examples include works featuring
3120-434: The 21st century, the noun female is primarily used to describe non-human animals, to refer to biologically female humans in an impersonal technical context (e.g., "Females were more likely than males to develop an autoimmune disease"), or to impartially include a range of people without reference to age (e.g., girls ) or social status (e.g., lady ). As an adjective, female is still used in some contexts, particularly when
3200-585: The American soap opera One Life to Live . In contrast to many other Disney -related media, the animated series Phineas and Ferb features a stepfamily in which both parents get along well with their three children (avoiding the normal tropes of evil stepparents). 438 BCE: The dying biological mother requests that her husband not remarry, for fear of her children being mistreated by a stepmother. 428 BCE: The stepmother commits suicide to prevent herself from following through on her lust for her stepson and leaves
3280-455: The Children has ranked the countries of the world, and found that Scandinavian countries are the safest places to give birth, whereas countries in sub-Saharan Africa are the least safe to give birth. This study argues a mother in the bottom ten ranked countries is over 750 times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth , compared to a mother in the top ten ranked countries, and a mother in
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3360-518: The Golden Stars . In some fairy tales, such as Giambattista Basile 's La Gatta Cennerentola or the Danish Green Knight , the stepmother wins the marriage by ingratiating herself with the stepdaughter, and once she obtains it, becomes cruel. In some fairy tales, the stepdaughter's escape by marrying does not free her from her stepmother. After the birth of the stepdaughter's first child,
3440-524: The Old French femelle . It is not etymologically related to the word male , but in the late 14th century the English spelling was altered to parallel that of male . It has been used as both noun and adjective since the 14th century. Originally, from its first appearance in the 1300s, female exclusively referred to humans and always indicated that the speaker spoke of a woman or a girl. A century later,
3520-480: The United States is common and relatively easy from a legal point of view (compared to other Western countries). In 2001, with over 127,000 adoptions, the US accounted for nearly half of the total number of adoptions worldwide. A surrogate mother is a woman who bears a child that came from another woman's fertilized ovum on behalf of a couple unable to give birth to children. Thus the surrogate mother carries and gives birth to
3600-463: The Western world, in-vitro fertilization has far less prominence, importance or currency compared to primary, basic healthcare, women's basic health, reducing infant mortality and the prevention of life-threatening diseases such as polio , typhus and malaria . Traditionally, and still in most parts of the world today, a mother was expected to be a married woman, with birth outside of marriage carrying
3680-559: The black female body and of maternity and slavery in the US, the latter of which is often characterized by the "extreme passivity and devalued love" typically associated with motherhood. The proverbial "first word" of an infant often sounds like "ma" or "mama". This strong association of that sound with "mother" has persisted in nearly every language on earth, countering the natural localization of language. Familiar or colloquial terms for mother in English are: In many other languages, similar pronunciations apply: The modern English word
3760-457: The bottom ten ranked countries is 28 times more likely to see her child die before reaching their first birthday. The most recent data suggests that Italy , Sweden and Luxembourg are the safest countries in terms of maternal death and Afghanistan , Central African Republic and Malawi are the most dangerous. Childbirth can be a dangerous process in the absence of effective measures to reduce death. When none of these measure are taken,
3840-437: The castle caused her father to dote on her and neglect his duties to the destruction of the kingdom; her stepmother had merely made her destructive potential literal, and forced her to confront what she was doing. The character of the evil stepmother can also be found in the genre of young adult fiction or young adult social problem novels. In Lisa Heathfield's Paper Butterflies . the protagonist June suffers horrific abuse at
3920-457: The children of the first marriage for resources; the tales can be interpreted as factual conflicts from history. In some fairy tales, such as The Juniper Tree , the stepmother's hostility is overtly the desire to secure the inheritance of her children. Stepmothers also make many appearances in Chinese tales of family. Wicked stepmothers are common. In Classic of Filial Piety , Guo Jujing told
4000-478: The corresponding plugs male . Females produce ova , the larger gametes in a heterogamous reproduction system , while the smaller and usually motile gametes, the spermatozoa , are produced by males. Generally, a female cannot reproduce sexually without access to the gametes of a male, and vice versa, but in some species females can reproduce by themselves asexually , for example via parthenogenesis . Patterns of sexual reproduction include: Other than
4080-417: The defining difference in the type of gamete produced, differences between males and females in one lineage cannot always be predicted by differences in another. The concept is not limited to animals; egg cells are produced by chytrids , diatoms , water moulds and land plants , among others. In land plants, female and male designate not only the egg- and sperm-producing organisms and structures, but also
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#17328378016024160-609: The existing Virgin Mary archetype while subverting its norms around sexuality by centering her identity as a lesbian. Rather than attempting to make her experience of motherhood fit into existing norms, Opie's photographs are "non-traditional and non-apologetic representations". In her 2020 photography collection, Solana Cain explored the meaning of joy for Black mothers to challenge the lack of images in mainstream media that represent Black motherhood. Renee Cox's Yo Mama series of nude self-portraits challenge historical representations of both
4240-446: The family together, their soon-to-be stepmother is very cruel, as they suspected. When the wedding to her is called off, the father decides to marry the much kinder scullery maid, causing one child to comment that the evil stepmother personification does not apply to her. Stepmother relationships are often examined in soap operas . An example of this is the long-running rivalry between Victoria Lord Banks and stepmother Dorian Lord on
4320-416: The female human body stores large amounts of fatty tissue near the nipples, resulting in prominent breasts . Mammary glands are present in all mammals, although they are normally redundant in males of the species. Most mammalian females have two copies of the X chromosome , while males have only one X and one smaller Y chromosome ; some mammals, such as the platypus , have different combinations. One of
4400-654: The female's X chromosomes is randomly inactivated in each cell of placental mammals while the paternally derived X is inactivated in marsupials. In birds and some reptiles, by contrast, it is the female which is heterozygous and carries a Z and a W chromosome while the male carries two Z chromosomes. In mammals, females can have XXX or X . Mammalian females bear live young , with the exception of monotreme females, which lay eggs. Some non-mammalian species, such as guppies , have analogous reproductive structures; and some other non-mammals, such as some sharks , also bear live young. In sex determination for mammals, female
4480-581: The hands of her stepmother, a fact that she conceals from her father. Despite many examples of evil or cruel stepmothers, loving stepmothers also exist in fiction. In Kevin and Kell , Kell is portrayed as loving her stepdaughter Lindesfarne, whom her husband Kevin had adopted during his previous marriage. Likewise, Lindesfarne considers Kell her mother, and has a considerably more favorable view of her than Angelique, Kevin's ex-wife and her adoptive mother, due to feeling neglected by Angelique during her childhood. The Disney film Enchanted also makes references to
4560-473: The heroine is persecuted by her husband's mother and in another one by her stepmother, and in The Twelve Wild Ducks , by his stepmother. Sometimes this appears to be a deliberate switch: The Brothers Grimm , having put in their first editions versions of Snow White and Hansel and Gretel where the villain was the biological mother, altered it to a stepmother in later editions, perhaps to mitigate
4640-814: The ideal of maternal self-sacrifice and the 'good mother' forms an important part of many works of art relating to the Holocaust , other women's Holocaust and post-Holocaust art has engaged more deeply with mothers' trauma, taboos, and the experiences of second and third-generation Holocaust survivors. For example, works by first-generation survivors of the Holocaust such as Ella Liebermann-Shiber and Shoshana Neuman have depicted mothers abandoning and suffocating their children in an effort to stay alive themselves. Increasingly diverse representations of motherhood can be found in contemporary works of art. Catherine Opie's self-portrait photographs, including of herself nursing, reference
4720-431: The legal rights and responsibilities of a parent in relation to the child. A father is the male counterpart of a mother. Women who are pregnant may be referred to as expectant mothers or mothers-to-be. The process of becoming a mother has been referred to as "matrescence". The adjective "maternal" refers to a mother and comparatively to "paternal" for a father . The verb "to mother" means to procreate or to sire
4800-733: The maternal death rate has been estimated as being within the order of magnitude of 1,500 deaths per 100,000 births. Modern medicine has greatly alleviated the risk of childbirth. In modern Western countries the current maternal mortality rate is around 10 deaths per 100,000 births. Nearly all world religions define tasks or roles for mothers through either religious law or through the glorification of mothers who served in substantial religious events. There are many examples of religious law relating to mothers and women. Major world religions which have specific religious law or religious texts that comment on mothers include: Christianity , Judaism , and Islam . Some examples of honoring motherhood include
4880-496: The mating cells are called gametes. The female gamete is larger than the male gamete, and usually immotile. Anisogamy remains poorly understood, as there is no fossil record of its emergence. Numerous theories exist as to why anisogamy emerged. Many share a common thread, in that larger female gametes are more likely to survive, and that smaller male gametes are more likely to find other gametes because they can travel faster. Current models often fail to account for why isogamy remains in
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#17328378016024960-405: The meaning was expanded to include non-human female organisms. For several centuries, using the word female as a noun was considered more respectful than calling her a woman or a lady and was preferred for that reason; however, by 1895, the linguistic fashion had changed, and female was often considered disparaging, usually on the grounds that it grouped humans with other animals. In
5040-610: The number of children born per woman, differs greatly from country to country. The TFR in 2013 was estimated to be highest in Niger (7.03 children born per woman) and lowest in Singapore (0.79 children/woman). In the United States , the TFR was estimated for 2013 at 2.06 births per woman. In 2011, the average age at first birth was 25.6 and 40.7% of births were to unmarried women. A maternal death
5120-462: The other depending on local environmental conditions, e.g. the sex of crocodilians is influenced by the temperature of their eggs. Other species (such as the goby ) can transform, as adults, from one sex to the other in response to local reproductive conditions (such as a brief shortage of males). The question of how females evolved is mainly a question of why males evolved. The first organisms reproduced asexually, usually via binary fission , wherein
5200-438: The past few decades due to technological developments. Modern lesbian parenting originated with women who were in heterosexual relationships who later identified as lesbian or bisexual, as changing attitudes provided more acceptance for non-heterosexual relationships. Other ways for such women to become mothers is through adopting, foster parenting or in vitro fertilization. Transgender women may have biological children with
5280-701: The primary role in raising children, but since the late 20th century, the role of the father in child care has been given greater prominence and social acceptance in some Western countries. The 20th century also saw more and more women entering paid work. Mothers' rights within the workforce include maternity leave and parental leave . The social role and experience of motherhood varies greatly depending upon location. Mothers are more likely than fathers to encourage assimilative and communion-enhancing patterns in their children. Mothers are more likely than fathers to acknowledge their children's contributions in conversation. The way mothers speak to their children ( "motherese" )
5360-529: The prince like a fairy godmother , but this figure is very rare in fairy tales. The stepmother may be identified with other evils the characters meet. For instance, both the stepmother and the witch in Hansel and Gretel are deeply concerned with food, the stepmother to avoid hunger, the witch with her house built of food and her desire to eat the children, and when the children kill the witch and return home, their stepmother has mysteriously died. This hostility from
5440-547: The relation between mothers and children. At the end of the nineteenth century, Mary Cassatt was a painter well known for her portraits of mothers. American poet, essayist and feminist Adrienne Rich has noted "the disjuncture between motherhood as patriarchal institution and motherhood as complexly and variously lived experience". The vast majority of works depicting motherhood in western art history have been created by artists who are men, with very few having been created by women or mothers themselves, and these often focus on
5520-426: The role of women was confined to some extent to being a mother and wife, with women being expected to dedicate most of their energy to these roles, and to spend most of their time taking care of the home. In many cultures, women received significant help in performing these tasks from older female relatives, such as mothers in law or their own mothers. Regarding women in the workforce , mothers are said to often follow
5600-500: The sex of the person is relevant, such as female athletes or to distinguish a male nurse from a female one. Biological sex is conceptually distinct from gender , although they are often used interchangeably. The adjective female can describe a person's sex or gender identity . The word can also refer to the shape of connectors and fasteners , such as screws, electrical pins, and technical equipment. Under this convention, sockets and receptacles are called female, and
5680-406: The stepmother and tenderness from the true mother has been interpreted in varying ways. A psychological interpretation, by Bruno Bettelheim , describes it as "splitting" the actual mother in an ideal mother and a false mother that contains what the child dislikes in the actual mother. However, historically, many women died in childbirth, their husbands remarried, and the new stepmothers competed with
5760-408: The stepmother kills her own stepdaughters. In many stories with evil stepmothers, the hostility between the stepmother and the stepchild is underscored by having the child succeed through aid from the dead mother. This motif occurs from Norse mythology , where Svipdagr rouses his mother Gróa from the grave so as to learn from her how to accomplish a task his stepmother set, to fairy tales such as
5840-606: The stepmother may attempt to murder the new mother and replace her with her own daughter—thus making her the stepmother to the next generation. Such a replacement occurs in The Wonderful Birch , Brother and Sister , and The Three Little Men in the Wood ; only by foiling the stepmother's plot (and usually executing her), is the story brought to a happy ending. In the Korean Folktale Janghwa Hongryeon jeon ,
5920-401: The stigma surrounding the "evil stepmother" character. Morello notes that the introduction of the "evil stepmother" character in the past is problematic to stepparents today, as it has created a stigma towards stepmothers. The presence of this stigma can have a negative impact on stepmothers' self-esteem. In fiction, stepmothers are often portrayed as being wicked and evil . The character of
6000-514: The story of Min Ziqian , who had lost his mother at a young age. His stepmother had two more sons and saw to it that they were warmly dressed in winter but neglected her stepson. When her husband discovered this, he decided to divorce her. His son interceded, on the ground that she neglected only him, but when they had no mother, all three sons would be neglected. His father relented, and the stepmother henceforth took care of all three children. For this, he
6080-458: The story's violence. Another reason for the change from a villainous mother to a villainous stepmother may have been the belief that mothers were sacred, as well as the belief that people would not believe that a mother could harbor such ill-will and animosity toward their child. The Icelandic fairy tale The Horse Gullfaxi and the Sword Gunnfoder features a good stepmother, who indeed aids
6160-449: The structures of the sporophytes that give rise to male and female plants . Species that are divided into females and males are classified as gonochoric in animals, as dioecious in seed plants and as dioicous in cryptogams . In some species, female and hermaphrodite individuals may coexist, a sexual system termed gynodioecy . In a few species, female individuals coexist with males and hermaphrodites ; this sexual system
6240-798: The veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary as Mother of God and the multiple positive references to active womanhood as a mother in the Book of Proverbs . Hindu 's Mother Goddess and Demeter of ancient Greek pre-Christian belief are also mothers. History records many conflicts between mothers and their children. Some even resulted in murder , such as the conflict between Cleopatra III of Egypt and her son Ptolemy X . In modern cultures, matricide (the killing of one's mother) and filicide (the killing of one's son or daughter) have been studied but remain poorly understood. Psychosis and schizophrenia are common causes of both, and young, indigent mothers with
6320-732: The wicked stepmother features heavily in fairy tales ; the most famous examples are Cinderella , Snow White and Hansel and Gretel . Stepdaughters are her most common victim, and then stepdaughter/stepson pairs, but stepsons also are victims as in The Juniper Tree —sometimes, as in East of the Sun and West of the Moon , because he refused to marry his stepsister as she wished, or, indeed, they may make their stepdaughters-in-law their victims, as in The Boys with
6400-428: Was held up as a model of filial piety . Conversely, the exemplary stepmother prefers the stepson to her own child, in recognition that his seniority makes him superior. The "righteous stepmother of Qi", faced with her son and stepson having been found by a murdered man, and both having confessed to shield the other, argues for her son's execution because her husband had ordered her to look after her stepson, and her son
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