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... > social science subjects > sociology > family studies > motherhood encyc > motherhood and society > mother country
... > social science subjects > psychology > social psychology > interpersonal relationships > human relationships > family studies > motherhood encyc > motherhood and society > mother country
... > social science subjects > sociology > social interaction > human relationships > family studies > motherhood encyc > motherhood and society > mother country
... > social science subjects > sociology > social theory > micro-interactionist theory > social interaction > human relationships > family studies > motherhood encyc > motherhood and society > mother country

Preferred term

mother country  

Definition

  • Mother country is the term that colonists or immigrants have used to refer to the geographical place where they were born, or that citizens use to refer to the geographical place from which their ancestors originated. More specifically, it is held that in 1617 John Robinson and William Brewster were the first to use the term as they wrote to Sir Edwyn Sandys about their plans to immigrate to America on the Mayflower: “We are well weaned from ye delicate milke of our mother countrie, and endured to ye difficulties of a strange and hard land, which yet in a great parte we have by patience overcome.”They had possibly read the term in the works of Arthur Golding, a Puritan, who had translated Ovid's Metamorphosis: “Next morrow, rising up as soon as day began to peep,/They went to Phoebus' oracle, which willed them to go/Unto their mother country and the coasts their stock came fro.” Only before the American Revolution (1775–83) was Great Britain the mother country of the United States, and then only for a portion of today's states. [Source: Encyclopedia of Motherhood; Mother Country]

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https://concepts.sagepub.com/social-science/concept/mother_country

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