Queen mother is a title or position reserved for a widowed queen consort (a queen dowager) whose son or daughter from that marriage is the reigning monarch. The term has been used in English since at least 1577. It arises in hereditary monarchies in Europe, and is also used to describe a number of similar yet distinct monarchical concepts in non-European cultures around the World.
Read more about Queen Mother: Status, Recent British Queen Mothers, Other Notable Queen Mothers in History, Exceptional Cases, 'King Mother', King Father, Princess
Famous quotes containing the words queen and/or mother:
““Speak when you’re spoken to!” the Queen sharply interrupted her.
“But if everybody obeyed that rule,” said Alice, who was always ready for a little argument, “and if you only spoke when you were spoken to, and the other person always waited for you to begin, you see nobody would ever say anything, so that—””
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“All my life I’ve felt like somebody’s wife, or somebody’s mother or somebody’s daughter. Even all the time we were together, I never knew who I was. And that’s why I had to go away. And in California, I think I found myself.”
—Robert Benton (b. 1932)