Mother’s Day has not always been about flowers, chocolates and dutiful children – the history of the day is full of conflict and controversy.
The story of Mother’s Day is a tale of two women.
Neither had any children of their own. One was inspired by medieval traditions with a surprisingly dark side, while the other grew to regret she ever suggested the day.
If you take the advice of the latter, this Sunday, you wouldn’t even send a card. Greetings cards are for the lazy. A more earnest show of appreciation would involve giving a cake.
Mother’s Day or Mothering Sunday?
If you’re reading this in the US (or Australia, Canada or dozens of other countries), don’t panic. Your Mother’s Day isn’t until the second Sunday in May.
The UK, however, marks the day on the fourth Sunday of Lent – 31 March this year – thanks to its revival of a medieval tradition called Mothering Sunday. But it took an American to give us the idea.
Originator of Mother’s Day
Anna Jarvis, of West Virginia, is the matriarch of modern Mother’s Day. She organised the first in 1908, following the death of her own mother. By 1914 the US president had proclaimed it a national holiday.
A British woman, Constance Adelaide Smith, was inspired by this success. But she was also afraid of an American celebration displacing British traditions, and so campaigned to bring back its medieval incarnation instead.
“A lot of people felt that industrialisation and urbanisation were destroying British culture and community,” says Cordelia Moyse, a historian who writes about women and the Church.
Ms Smith was part of a wider trend in the early 20th Century that idealised what it saw as the greater social harmony of medieval England. Read more