co-mother

English

Alternative forms

• commother

Etymology

• com- +‎ mother, as calque of Latin commater, French commère.

Noun

co-mother (plural co-mothers)

1. (obsolete) The relationship of a godmother to the other god-parents, and the legal parents, of a child.

   Synonyms: cummer, gossip, commère

   Coordinate term: co-father

   • 1967, Charles Wagley, Joao José Rescála, Amazon town, page 151:

     It is considered incestuous for a co-mother and co-father to have sex relations

2. In polygamy, a wife of one's father who is not one's mother; that is, co-wife of one's mother.

   Synonym: sister-wife

   • 2001, Thomas Slone, One Thousand One Papua New Guinean Nights: Tales form 1972–1985, page 321:

     the two of them went to their mother's forest hut and tried to find a way to avenge their mother's death and kill their co-mother.

3. In polygamy, the relationship between one co-wife and another, in respect to their children.

   Synonym: sister-wife

   • 2003, Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmi, African women and feminism: reflecting on the politics of sisterhood, page 13:

     Notwithstanding the voluminous “co-wife” literature that Western anthropologists have used to define African marriage, “co-mother” is the preferred idiom in many African cultures for expressing the relationship amongst women married into the same family.

4. In a lesbian couple, the nonbirth mother (partner of the birth mother) of a child, especially one who takes an equal role in mothering the child.

   Synonym: stepmother

   Coordinate term: co-father

   • 2004, Robert Parkin, Linda Stone, Kinship and family: an anthropological reader, page 384:

     The dilemmas engendered by the absence of a biological tie between a child and co-mother illuminate the centrality of familial rights and obligations in American kinship.

Coordinate terms

• co-father
• co-parent

Related terms

• co-sister
• co-aunt
• co-grandmother
• co-wife
• co-mother-in-law

Translations

in polygamy, a wife of one's father who is not one's mother; that is, co-wife of one's mother

in polygamy, the relationship between one co-wife and another, in respect to their children

in a lesbian couple, the nonbirth mother (partner of the birth mother) of a child, especially one who takes an equal role in mothering the child