step-mother

step-mother
   The Oxford English Dictionary mentions that the term ‘step-devil’ was once used as a synonym of ‘step-mother’. Certainly the latter term is a difficult one to live with, thanks to the wicked stepmothers of many a children’s tale.
   Speakers usually try to find some other term to use as a vocative, but it can be difficult. In Love for Love, by William Congreve, Miss Prue uses ‘Mother’ to her step-mother, and is not thanked for it: ‘Mother, Mother, Mother, look you here.’ ‘Fie, fie, Miss, how you bawl - Besides, I have told you, you must not call me Mother’ ‘What must I call you, then? Are you not my father’s wife?’ ‘Madam; you must say Madam. By my soul, I shall fancy myself old indeed, to have this great girl call me Mother.’
   This is an eighteenth-century view, and most modern step-mothers, one suspects, would be only too glad to be addressed as ‘Mother’. Border Country, by Raymond Williams, has the following exchange: ‘Why do you call her your Mam?’ Will asked. ‘She’s not, so why call her it?’ ‘But she’s been my Mam, since they got married.’ ‘It’s still wrong. What they do doesn’t make it different’ ‘What should I call her? Stepmother sounds nasty.’ ‘If it’s nasty, say it’ ‘But it isn’t nasty, it only sounds it’ ‘If it sounds it, it is.’
   The term used by a step-child will of course depend on how old it was when its father remarried, and on whether its real mother is still alive. It might also make a difference if the step-mother has children by a former marriage, or the present marriage, who address her by one of the ‘mother’ terms. With step-parenthood becoming ever more common, those concerned would probably be glad to turn to a standard term of address that would avoid embarrassment and acknowledge the relationship in a fairly neutral way. No such term exists. Rumer Godden, in The Battle of the Villa Fiorita, describes a couple who both have children by former marriages, but intend to marry.
   ‘Mr Quillet.’ Hugh and Caddie had punctiliously called Rob that until Fanny stopped them, ‘Call him Rob,’ but neither of them did except when they talked of him to one another. The awkwardness of what Pia was to call Fanny was worse. ‘I hope one day she will say “mother” like the others,’ said Rob but Fanny shook her head. ‘We can only hope for that.’ Pia’s manners shrank from saying ‘Fanny’. She said ‘You’ and to Hugh and Caddie ‘Your mother’.

A dictionary of epithets and terms of address . . 2015.

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