First Lady - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

First Lady or First Gentleman
is the unofficial title used in some countries for the spouse of an elected head of state

Head of State

A head of state is the individual that serves as the chief public representative of a monarchy, republic, federation, commonwealth or other kind of state. His or her role generally includes legitimizing the state and exercising the political powers, functions, and duties granted to the head of...

.

It is not normally used to refer to the spouse or partner of a prime minister

Prime minister

A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...

; the husband or wife of the British Prime Minister is usually informally referred to as prime minister's (or ministerial) consort.

United States

The title "First Lady" originated in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

in 1849, when United States President

President of the United States

The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

Zachary Taylor

Zachary Taylor was the 12th President of the United States and an American military leader. Initially uninterested in politics, Taylor nonetheless ran as a Whig in the 1848 presidential election, defeating Lewis Cass...

called Dolley Madison

Dolley Madison

Dolley Payne Todd Madison was the spouse of the fourth President of the United States, James Madison, and was First Lady of the United States from 1809 to 1817...

"First Lady" at her state funeral

State funeral

A state funeral is a public funeral ceremony, observing the strict rules of protocol, held to honor heads of state or other important people of national significance. State funerals usually include much pomp and ceremony as well as religious overtones and distinctive elements of military tradition...

while reciting a eulogy written by himself.

In the early days of the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, there was no generally accepted title for the wife of the President. Many early first ladies expressed their own preference for how they were addressed, including the use of such titles as "Lady," "Mrs. President," "Mrs. Presidentress" (in the case of Julia Tyler) and "Queen of the White House."

Harriet Lane

Harriet Lane

Harriet Rebecca Lane Johnston , niece of lifelong bachelor United States President James Buchanan, acted as First Lady of the United States from 1857 to 1861. She was one of the few women to hold the position of First Lady while not being married to the President.-Early life:Harriet Lane's family...

, niece of bachelor President James Buchanan

James Buchanan

James Buchanan, Jr. was the 15th President of the United States . He is the only president from Pennsylvania, the only president who remained a lifelong bachelor and the last to be born in the 18th century....

was the first woman to be called First Lady while actually serving in that position. The phrase appeared in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Monthly in 1860, when he wrote, "The Lady of the White House, and by courtesy, the First Lady of the Land." Once Harriet Lane was called First Lady, the term was applied retrospectively to her predecessors.

The title first gained nationwide recognition in 1877, when Mary C. Ames

Mary C. Ames

Mary Clemmer Ames American author was born to Abraham Clemmer and Margaret Kneale in Utica, New York. On 7 May 1851 she married the Rev. Daniel Ames, from whom she was divorced in 1874...

wrote an article in the New York City newspaper The Independent describing the inauguration

Inauguration

An inauguration is a formal ceremony to mark the beginning of a leader's term of office. An example is the ceremony in which the President of the United States officially takes the oath of office....

of President Rutherford B. Hayes

Rutherford B. Hayes

Rutherford Birchard Hayes was the 19th President of the United States . As president, he oversaw the end of Reconstruction and the United States' entry into the Second Industrial Revolution...

. She used the term to describe his wife, Lucy Webb Hayes

Lucy Webb Hayes

Lucille "Lucy" Ware Webb Hayes was a First Lady of the United States and the wife of President Rutherford B. Hayes.Historians have christened her "Lemonade Lucy" due to her staunch support of the temperance movement...

.

In some situations, the title is bestowed upon a non-spouse. Park Geun-hye

Park Geun-hye

Park Geun-hye is a South Korean politician. She is a member of the Korean National Assembly and was the head of the conservative Grand National Party. She is now in her fourth parliamentary term, having first been elected in 1998. Her father was Park Chung-hee, president of South Korea from 1963...

, former head of the Grand National Party

Grand National Party

The Grand National Party is a conservative political party in South Korea. Its Korean name, Hannara, has a double meaning as "Great National" and "Korean National." The GNP holds a majority of seats in the 18th Assembly, lasting from 2008 to 2012....

of Korea, has been referred to as the First Lady to South Korean President Park Chung Hee. Although she is President Park's daughter, the title was bestowed upon her after her mother's death. In 1994, Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori

Alberto Fujimori

Alberto Fujimori Fujimori served as President of Peru from 28 July 1990 to 17 November 2000. A controversial figure, Fujimori has been credited with the creation of Fujimorism, uprooting terrorism in Peru and restoring its macroeconomic stability, though his methods have drawn charges of...

officially named his daughter Keiko

Keiko Fujimori

Keiko Sofía Fujimori Higuchi is a Peruvian Fujimorista politician, daughter of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori and Susana Higuchi. She served as First Lady, from 1994 to 2000, after her parents divorced, becoming the youngest First Lady in the history of the Americas...

First Lady after he had separated from his wife Susana Higuchi

Susana Higuchi

Susana Shizuko Higuchi Miyagawa is a Peruvian politician and engineer, better known as the former wife of ex-president of Peru Alberto Fujimori...

.

The title "First Gentleman" is used for the head of state's husband in the Philippines as well as for the husbands of female governors in the United States. It has been theorized that "First Gentleman" would be used for the male spouse of an American head of state. Mike Gregoire, husband of Washington's governor Chris Gregoire, website prefers to use his name instead of a common noun, calling himself ed "First Mike". Former U.S. President Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

also joked that perhaps his title would be "First Lad" or "First Mate" if his wife Hillary Clinton were to be elected President.

In the past, occasionally another woman, such as the President's daughter, has filled the duties of First Lady as hostess in the White House

White House

The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...

, if the President's wife was unwilling, unable, or if the President was a widower or bachelor.

The current First Lady of the United States

First Lady of the United States

First Lady of the United States is the title of the hostess of the White House. Because this position is traditionally filled by the wife of the president of the United States, the title is most often applied to the wife of a sitting president. The current first lady is Michelle Obama.-Current:The...

is Michelle Obama

Michelle Obama

Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama is the wife of the 44th and incumbent President of the United States, Barack Obama, and is the first African-American First Lady of the United States...

, wife of Barack Obama

Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

. In American media the term First Lady is often applied to the wife of a head of state in another country, irrespective of whether a different appellation (or none) is used in that country.

The entire family of the head of state may be known familiarly as the "First Family

First Family

A First Family is an unofficial title for the family of the head of state or head of government of a country .A First Family usually consists of:*The head of state or head of government*The First Lady or First Gentleman...

". The spouse of the second-in-command (such as a Vice President

Vice president

A vice president is an officer in government or business who is below a president in rank. The name comes from the Latin vice meaning 'in place of'. In some countries, the vice president is called the deputy president...

) may be known as the "Second Lady

Second Lady

A Second Lady is a title sometimes used in reference to the wife of a vice president or a lieutenant governor, styled relative to the title of First Lady, the wife of a president or governor...

", or Vice-First Lady. Less frequently, the family would be known as the "Second Family".

The spouse of the governor

Governor (United States)

In the United States, the title governor refers to the chief executive of each state or insular territory, not directly subordinate to the federal authorities, but the political and ceremonial head of the state.-Role and powers:...

of a U.S. state is commonly referred to as the First Lady or First Gentleman of that state, for example "First Lady Jessica Doyle of Wisconsin

Wisconsin

Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...

." The practice is less common for spouses of mayors but is nevertheless used for some, particularly in large cities; example: "First Lady Magie Daley of Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

" or "First Lady Kris Barrett of Milwaukee."

Apolitical uses

It has become commonplace in the United States for the title of "First Lady" to be bestowed on women, as a term of endearment, who have proven themselves to be of exceptional talent, even if that talent is non-political. For example, the term has been applied in the entertainment field to denote the "First Lady of Television" (Lucille Ball

Lucille Ball

Lucille Désirée Ball was an American comedian, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy...

), the "First Lady of Song" (Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...

), the "First Lady of Country Music" (Tammy Wynette

Tammy Wynette

Virginia Wynette Pugh, known professionally as Tammy Wynette , was an American country music singer-songwriter and one of the genre's best-known artists and biggest-selling female vocalists....

, although Loretta Lynn

Loretta Lynn

Loretta Lynn is an American country music singer-songwriter, author and philanthropist. Born in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky to a coal miner father, Lynn married at 13 years old, was a mother soon after, and moved to Washington with her husband, Oliver Lynn. Their marriage was sometimes tumultuous; he...

was also known by the title), the "First Lady of Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...

" (Majel Barrett

Majel Barrett

Majel Barrett-Roddenberry was an American actress and producer. She is perhaps best known for her role as Nurse Christine Chapel in the original Star Trek series, Lwaxana Troi on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and for being the voice of most onboard computer interfaces throughout the series...

), the "First Lady of American Soul" (Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin

Aretha Louise Franklin is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Although known for her soul recordings and referred to as The Queen of Soul, Franklin is also adept at jazz, blues, R&B, gospel music, and rock. Rolling Stone magazine ranked her atop its list of The Greatest Singers of All...

), the "First Lady of the Grand Ole Opry

Grand Ole Opry

The Grand Ole Opry is a weekly country music stage concert in Nashville, Tennessee, that has presented the biggest stars of that genre since 1925. It is also among the longest-running broadcasts in history since its beginnings as a one-hour radio "barn dance" on WSM-AM...

" (Loretta Lynn

Loretta Lynn

), and the "First Lady of the American Stage" (Helen Hayes

Helen Hayes

Helen Hayes Brown was an American actress whose career spanned almost 70 years. She eventually garnered the nickname "First Lady of the American Theatre" and was one of twelve people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award...

) .

The term "first lady" is also used to denote a woman who occupies the foremost social position within a particular locality.

External links

Current First Ladies (biographies and photo profiles)

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

United States

Apolitical uses

See also

External links