Nurse empress dowager (Chinese: 保太后; pinyin: Bǎo Tàihòu) was an honorific title given to emperors' wet nurses of the Xianbei-led Chinese Northern Wei dynasty. 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 dowagers, 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.
This article related to the history of China is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
nurse, empress, dowager, this, article, does, cite, sources, please, help, improve, this, article, adding, citations, reliable, sources, unsourced, material, challenged, removed, find, sources, news, newspapers, books, scholar, jstor, december, 2009, learn, wh. This article does not cite any sources Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Nurse empress dowager news newspapers books scholar JSTOR December 2009 Learn how and when to remove this message Nurse empress dowager Chinese 保太后 pinyin Bǎo Taihou was an honorific title given to emperors wet nurses of the Xianbei led Chinese Northern Wei dynasty 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 dowagers 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 This article related to the history of China is a stub You can help Wikipedia by expanding it vte Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Nurse empress dowager amp oldid 1069357660, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
