Nurse empress dowager
Encyclopedia
Nurse empress dowager was an honorific title given to emperors' wet nurse
s during the Chinese
/Xianbei
dynasty Northern Wei
. The existence of the title owed itself to a peculiar institution of Northern Wei—that when a son of the emperor were to be made crown prince
, his mother, if alive, must be forced to commit suicide. The crown princes were therefore raised by wet nurses, and when they became emperors, they would typically honor their wet nurses as nurse empress dowagers. Often, later in their reigns, they would then honor their wet nurses as full empress dowager
s, and they often had just as much influence as the emperors' mothers would have had—rendering the rationale for the Northern Wei institution of putting mothers to death (that therefore empress dowagers would not dominate the political scene) somewhat ineffective.
Wet nurse
A wet nurse is a woman who is used to breast feed and care for another's child. Wet nurses are used when the mother is unable or chooses not to nurse the child herself. Wet-nursed children may be known as "milk-siblings", and in some cultures the families are linked by a special relationship of...
s during the Chinese
History of China
Chinese civilization originated in various regional centers along both the Yellow River and the Yangtze River valleys in the Neolithic era, but the Yellow River is said to be the Cradle of Chinese Civilization. With thousands of years of continuous history, China is one of the world's oldest...
/Xianbei
Xianbei
The Xianbei were a significant Mongolic nomadic people residing in Manchuria, Inner Mongolia and eastern Mongolia. The title “Khan” was first used among the Xianbei.-Origins:...
dynasty Northern Wei
Northern Wei
The Northern Wei Dynasty , also known as the Tuoba Wei , Later Wei , or Yuan Wei , was a dynasty which ruled northern China from 386 to 534 . It has been described as "part of an era of political turbulence and intense social and cultural change"...
. The existence of the title owed itself to a peculiar institution of Northern Wei—that when a son of the emperor were to be made crown prince
Crown Prince
A crown prince or crown princess is the heir or heiress apparent to the throne in a royal or imperial monarchy. The wife of a crown prince is also titled crown princess....
, his mother, if alive, must be forced to commit suicide. The crown princes were therefore raised by wet nurses, and when they became emperors, they would typically honor their wet nurses as nurse empress dowagers. Often, later in their reigns, they would then honor their wet nurses as full empress dowager
Empress Dowager
Empress Dowager was the title given to the mother of a Chinese, Korean, Japanese or Vietnamese emperor.The title was also given occasionally to another woman of the same generation, while a woman from the previous generation was sometimes given the title of Grand empress dowager. Numerous empress...
s, and they often had just as much influence as the emperors' mothers would have had—rendering the rationale for the Northern Wei institution of putting mothers to death (that therefore empress dowagers would not dominate the political scene) somewhat ineffective.