Stepmother
A stepmother (from Middle High German stiefmuoter from stepmom , from ahd. Stiof of germ. Steupa * * steupaz , trimmed, step, similar to the IE. * Steup- , push, hit, stick, stump) is a woman who for at least one person has assumed maternal responsibility (cf. social mother , legal mother ) without being their biological mother . In most cases she is a new partner ( e.g. wife ) of the child's father or mother .
In the past, given the high birth and puerperal mortality rates ( puerperal fever ) and the need to remarry the widower, it was not uncommon for children to grow up with stepmothers.
Legal relationship
The term stepmother does not yet have a legal relationship with the child. Exists between the stepmother and the father or the natural mother of the child, a marriage or registered partnership , so stepmother and stepchild are related by marriage .
Any further legal relationship can only arise through adoption , but the stepmother can give the stepchild in Germany her family name by naming it.
So if the father of a child whose parents are divorced enters into a new relationship with a woman, and the child lives with them in social community, then this woman is the child's stepmother, regardless of whether the biological mother has died or not .
The stepmother in the fairy tale
The stepmother motif is often used in fairy tales. The stereotype of the "bad stepmother" is proverbial and well known from fairy tales (like Cinderella ) . Further examples:
- Little brother and sister (Grimm's fairy tale)
- Hansel and Gretel (Grimm's fairy tale, since the version from 1840. In the versions from 1812, 1819 and 1837 it is still the birth mother)
- Frau Holle (Grimm's fairy tale)
- Snow White (Grimm's fairy tale, since the version from 1819. In the original version from 1812 it is still the birth mother)
- The three little men in the forest (Grimm's fairy tale)
- The white and the black bride (Grimm's fairy tale)
- The Dearest Roland (Grimm's Fairy Tale)
- The Lord God of the Belly (fairy tale from the Walschtirol)
Stepmothers (as well as mothers -in-law, by the way ) often embody evil in fairy tales, as disruptors of family harmony - here they are considered the loveless opposite of the real mother, as a woman who hates the children of her predecessor. In fairy tales, however, a “bad stepfather ” appears very rarely , for example in The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs . Several scientific studies have attempted to investigate this phenomenon.
The stepmother in science
Psychoanalysis
The figure of the (bad) stepmother applies to analytical psychology in the tradition of Carl Gustav Jung as the expression of a mother archetype with destructive and devouring features.
European ethnology
A striking number of German fairy tales assume a “ matrilineal ” line of succession. This can be seen from the fact that princes or “swineherd” come, marry and inherit via the married daughter. If they stay with their family of origin, there is also uxorilocality . Here the mother's daughter becomes dangerous as a potential rival.
In Sleeping Beauty , the mother first appears as an evil fairy, years later as the old mother with the spindle.
structuralism
In family sociology, the following thesis is represented within the framework of structuralism : In all nuclear families there are couple figures with greater emotional closeness (e.g. father + daughter plus mother + son), which structurally ensure that father + son, mother + daughter and by the way, father and mother are also at a noticeably greater distance from each other. When the daughter turns from child to adolescent , she increasingly competes with the mother's role as an adult woman; Conflicts are predictable; the mother's battlefield will (more than with father + son) be her own household, and the traditional distance increases competition. The “dear” mother, and also the “dear” daughter, becomes an “angry” one. This often surprises both parties: the mother seems to be “exchanged” here, to a hostile “stepmother”.
Another reason for the high proportion of stepmothers in the literature is the high maternal mortality rate until the 19th century: as a result of the remarriage of fathers, many children grew up under the care of stepmothers.
See also
literature
- Karin Frei : Good bad stepmother. Seven portraits and a guide. Limmat Verlag, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-85791-479-3 .
- Verena Krähenbühl, Hans Jellouschek, Margarete Kohaus-Jellouschek, Roland Weber: Stepfamilies. Structure - Development - Therapy. 6th, updated edition. Lambertus Verlag, Freiburg im Bresgau 2007, ISBN 978-3-7841-1777-5 .
- Anja Steinbach: Generational Relationships in Step Families. The influence of physical and social parenthood on the design of parent-child relationships in adulthood. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2010, ISBN 978-3-531-17659-8 (also habilitation thesis at the Technical University of Chemnitz , 2009).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ See the various editions on Wikisource
- ↑ See the different versions on Wikisource
- ↑ haben.at
- ^ Christiane Pötter: Family relationships in the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm . GRIN Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-638-77817-6 , p. 9.
- ↑ maerchen.com
- ↑ Markus C. Schulte von Drach: How bad is the stepmother? ( Memento of the original from December 8, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . May 17, 2010.
- ↑ Carl Gustav Jung : The psychological aspects of the mother archetype. (1938), In: CG Jung: Archetypes. Munich 1990, ISBN 3-423-35125-X , p. 75 ff.
- ↑ Claude Lévi-Strauss : The elementary structures of kinship. (German 1981, acc. Eva Moldenhauer )
