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:
“They will mark the stone-battlements
And the circle of them
With a bright stain.
They will cast out the dead
A sight for Priam’s queen to lament
And her frightened daughters.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“From the moment of birth, when the stone-age baby confronts the twentieth-century mother, the baby is subjected to these forces of violence, called love, as its mother and father have been, and their parents and their parents before them. These forces are mainly concerned with destroying most of its potentialities. This enterprise is on the whole successful.”
—R.D. (Ronald David)