document_title: Mother's Day

question_text: who celebrates mother's day on may 10

question_tokens: who celebrates mother 's day on may 10

text: Mother's Day

text: Establishment of holiday[edit]

text: The modern holiday of Mother's Day was first celebrated in 1908, when Anna Jarvis held a memorial for her mother at St Andrew's Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia. St Andrew's Methodist Church now holds the International Mother's Day Shrine.[8] Her campaign to make "Mother's Day" a recognized holiday in the United States began in 1905, the year her mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, died. Ann Jarvis had been a peace activist who cared for wounded soldiers on both sides of the American Civil War, and created Mother's Day Work Clubs to address public health issues. Anna Jarvis wanted to honor her mother by continuing the work she started and to set aside a day to honor all mothers because she believed that they were "the person who has done more for you than anyone in the world".[9]

text: In 1908, the US Congress rejected a proposal to make Mother's Day an official holiday, joking that they would also have to proclaim a "Mother-in-law's Day".[10] However, owing to the efforts of Anna Jarvis, by 1911 all US states observed the holiday,[11] with some of them officially recognizing Mother's Day as a local holiday,[12] the first being West Virginia, Jarvis' home state, in 1910. In 1914, Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation designating Mother's Day, held on the second Sunday in May, as a national holiday to honor mothers.[13]

text: Although Jarvis was successful in founding Mother's Day, she became resentful of the commercialization of the holiday. By the early 1920s, Hallmark Cards and other companies had started selling Mother's Day cards. Jarvis believed that the companies had misinterpreted and exploited the idea of Mother's Day, and that the emphasis of the holiday was on sentiment, not profit. As a result, she organized boycotts of Mother's Day, and threatened to issue lawsuits against the companies involved.[14] Jarvis argued that people should appreciate and honor their mothers through handwritten letters expressing their love and gratitude, instead of buying gifts and pre-made cards.[13] Jarvis protested at a candy makers' convention in Philadelphia in 1923, and at a meeting of American War Mothers in 1925. By this time, carnations had become associated with Mother's Day, and the selling of carnations by the American War Mothers to raise money angered Jarvis, who was arrested for disturbing the peace.[13][14]

text: Spelling[edit]

text: In 1912 Anna Jarvis trademarked the phrases "Second Sunday in May" and "Mother's Day", and created the Mother's Day International Association.[15] She specifically noted that "Mother's" should "be a singular possessive, for each family to honor its own mother, not a plural possessive commemorating all mothers in the world."[16] This is also the spelling used by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in his 1914 presidential proclamation, by the U.S. Congress in relevant bills,[17][18] and by various U.S. presidents in their proclamations concerning Mother's Day.[19]

text: Dates around the world[edit]

text: While the United States holiday was adopted by some other countries, existing celebrations, held on different dates, honouring motherhood have become described as "Mother's Day", such as Mothering Sunday in the United Kingdom[5] or, in Greece, the Eastern Orthodox celebration of the presentation of Jesus Christ to the temple (2 February of Julian Calendar). Both the secular and religious Mother Day are present in Greece.[citation needed] Mothering Sunday is often referred to as "Mother's Day" even though it is an unrelated celebration.[5]

text: In some countries, the date adopted is one significant to the majority religion, such as Virgin Mary Day in Catholic countries. Other countries selected a date with historical significance. For example, Bolivia's Mother's Day is the date of a battle in which women participated.[20] See the "International history and tradition" section for the complete list.

text: Some ex-communist countries, such as Russia, celebrated International Women's Day instead of Mother's Day[21] or simply celebrate both holidays, which is the custom in Ukraine. Kyrgyzstan has recently introduced Mother's Day, but "year on year [International Women's Day] is certainly increasing in status".[22]

text: This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text:
Gregorian calendar

Occurrence
Dates
Country

Second Sunday of February

Feb 14, 2016
Feb 12, 2017
Feb 11, 2018

 Norway

3 March

 Georgia[23]

8 March (with International Women's Day)

 Afghanistan
 Albania
 Armenia
 Azerbaijan
 Belarus
 Bosnia and Herzegovina
 Bulgaria
 Burundi
 Burkina Faso
 Kazakhstan
 Kosovo
 Laos
 Macedonia
 Moldova
 Montenegro
 Russia
 Serbia
 Slovenia
 Tajikistan
 Uzbekistan
 Vietnam[24]

Fourth Sunday in Lent (Mothering Sunday)

6 Mar 2016
26 Mar 2017
11 Mar 2018

 Guernsey
 Ireland
 Isle of Man
 Jersey
 Nigeria
 United Kingdom[25]

21 March
(Spring equinox)

 Bahrain[26]
 Comoros
 Djibouti
 Egypt[26]
 Iraq
 Jordan[26]
 Kuwait[26]
 Libya[26]
 Lebanon[27][28]
 Mauritania
 Oman[26]
 Palestine[26][28]
 Qatar[26]
 Saudi Arabia[citation needed]
 Somalia
 Sudan[26]
 Syria[26]
 United Arab Emirates[26]
 Yemen

25 March

 Slovenia

7 April (Annunciation day)

 Armenia (Motherhood and Beauty Day)

First Sunday of May

May 1, 2016
May 7, 2017
May 6, 2018

 Angola
 Cape Verde
 Hungary
 Lithuania
 Mozambique
 Portugal
 Romania
 Spain

8 May

 South Korea (Parents' Day)

10 May

 El Salvador
 Guatemala
 Mexico

Second Sunday of May

May 8, 2016
May 14, 2017
May 13, 2018
May 12, 2019

 Anguilla
 Antigua and Barbuda
 Aruba
 Australia
 Austria
 Bahamas
 Bangladesh
 Barbados
 Belgium
 Belize
 Bermuda
 Bhutan
 Bonaire
 Botswana
 Brazil
 Brunei
 Canada
 Cambodia
 Cayman Islands
 Central African Republic
 Chad
 Chile[29]
 China[30]
 Colombia
 Congo, Dem. Rep.
 Congo, Rep.
 Cote d'Ivoire
 Croatia
 Cuba[31]
 Curaçao
 Cyprus
 Czech Republic[32]
 Denmark
 Dominica
 Ecuador
 Equatorial Guinea
 Estonia
 Ethiopia
 Faroe Islands
 Fiji
 Finland
 Germany
 Gabon
 Gambia
 Greenland
 Ghana
 Greece
 Grenada
 Guyana
 Honduras
 Hong Kong
 Iceland
 India
 Italy
 Jamaica
 Japan
 Kenya
 Latvia
 Liberia
 Liechtenstein
 Macau
 Malaysia
 Malta
 Myanmar
 Namibia
 Netherlands
 New Zealand
 Pakistan
 Papua New Guinea
 Peru[33]
 Philippines
 Puerto Rico
 Saint Kitts and Nevis
 Saint Lucia
 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
 Samoa
 Singapore
 Sint Maarten
 Slovakia[32]
 South Africa[34]
 Sri Lanka
 Suriname
  Switzerland
 Taiwan
 Tanzania
 Tonga
 Trinidad and Tobago
 Turkey
 Uganda
 Ukraine
 United States
 Uruguay
 Vietnam[24]
 Venezuela
 Zambia
 Zimbabwe

14 May

 Benin

15 May

 Paraguay (same day as Día de la Patria)[35]

19 May

 Kyrgyzstan (Russian: День матери, Kyrgyz: Энэ күнү)

22 May

 Israel (new)[36]

26 May

 Poland (Polish: Dzień Matki)

27 May

 Bolivia[20]

Last Sunday of May (sometimes First Sunday of June if the last Sunday of May is Pentecost)

May 29, 2016
May 28, 2017
May 27, 2018

 Algeria
 Cameroon
 Dominican Republic
 France[25] (First Sunday of June if Pentecost occurs on this day)

French Antilles (First Sunday of June if Pentecost occurs on this day)

 Madagascar
 Mali
 Morocco
 Niger
 Haiti[37]
 Mauritius
 Senegal
 Sweden
 Tunisia

30 May

 Nicaragua[38]

1 June

 Mongolia (together with Children's Day)

Second Sunday of June

Jun 12, 2016
Jun 11, 2017
Jun 10, 2018

 Luxembourg

First Monday of July

Jul 4, 2016
Jul 3, 2017
Jul 2, 2018

 South Sudan

12 August

 Thailand (birthday of Queen Sirikit)

15 August (Assumption of Mary)

 Costa Rica
 Antwerp (Belgium)

Second Monday of October

Oct 10, 2016
Oct 9, 2017
Oct 8, 2018

 Malawi

14 October

 Belarus (since 1996[39])

Third Sunday of October

Oct 16, 2016
Oct 15, 2017
Oct 21, 2018

 Argentina (Día de la Madre)[40]

3 November

 Timor Leste

16 November

 North Korea[41]

Last Sunday of November

 Russia

8 December (Feast of the Immaculate Conception)

 Panama[42]

22 December

 Indonesia[43]

Hebrew calendars

Occurrence
Equivalent Gregorian dates
Country

Shevat 30

Between 30 January and 1 March- Family Day

 Israel[36]

Hindu calendars

Occurrence
Equivalent Gregorian dates
Country

Baisakh[44] Amavasya (Mata Tirtha Aunsi[45])

Between 19 April and 19 May
6 May 2016 [44]
26 April 2017

   Nepal

Islamic calendars

Occurrence
Equivalent Gregorian dates
Country

20 Jumada al-Thani[n 1]

20 April 2014
10 April 2015
30 March 2016

 Iran[46]

text: International history and tradition[edit]

text: This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text: In most countries, Mother's Day is an observance derived from the holiday as it has evolved in the United States, promoted by companies who saw benefit in making it popular.[6] As adopted by other countries and cultures, the holiday has different meanings, is associated with different events (religious, historical or legendary), and is celebrated on different dates.

text: In some cases, countries already had existing celebrations honoring motherhood, and their celebrations then adopted several external characteristics from the US holiday, such as giving carnations and other presents to one's mother.

text: The extent of the celebrations varies greatly. In some countries, it is potentially offensive to one's mother not to mark Mother's Day. In others, it is a little-known festival celebrated mainly by immigrants, or covered by the media as a taste of foreign culture.[citation needed]

text: Religion[edit]

text: In the Roman Catholic Church, the holiday is strongly associated with revering the Virgin Mary.[47] In some Catholic homes, families have a special shrine devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary. In many Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, a special prayer service is held in honor of the Theotokos Virgin Mary.[48][citation needed]

text: In Islam there is no concept of Mother's Day, but mothers hold a very high position[49] in religious matters. According to some Islamic traditions, Heaven is said to be found under a mother's feet, meaning that one can attain admission into heaven after death if they are a caring and loving child to their mothers.[citation needed]

text: In Hindu tradition, Mother's Day is called "Mata Tirtha Aunshi" or "Mother Pilgrimage fortnight", and is celebrated in countries with a Hindu population, especially in Nepal. The holiday is observed on the new moon day in the month of Baisakh, i.e., April/May. This celebration is based on Hindu religion and it pre-dates the creation of the US-inspired celebration by at least a few centuries.[citation needed]

text: In Buddhism, the festival of Ullambana is derived from the story of Maudgalyayana and his mother.[50]

text: By country (A–G)[edit]

text: Albania[edit]

text: Mother's day is celebrated in 8 March . The origin of the 8th of March holiday dates back to 1908 and is associated with a tragic event. A group of workers at a textile factory in New York strikes against extreme working conditions. On March 8, the factory was shut down and the workers remained trapped inside. Suddenly a fire broke out, where 129 mothers died.

text: Arab world[edit]

text: Mother's Day in most Arab countries is celebrated on 21 March. It was introduced in Egypt by journalist Mustafa Amin[51] and was first celebrated in 1956. The practice has since been copied by other Arab countries.[citation needed]

text: Argentina[edit]

text: In Argentina, Mother's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of October. The holiday was originally celebrated on 11 October, the old liturgical date for the celebration of the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary but after the Second Vatican Council, which moved the Virgin Mary festivity to 1 January, the Mother's Day started to be celebrated the third Sunday of October because of popular tradition.[40] Argentina is the only country in the world that celebrates Mother's Day on this date.[citation needed]

text: Armenia[edit]

text: In Armenia, Mother's Day is celebrated on 8 March, and on 7 April as Maternity and Beauty Day.

text: Australia[edit]

text: In Australia, Mother's Day is celebrated on the second Sunday in May. The tradition of giving gifts to mothers on Mother's Day in Australia was started by Janet Heyden,[52] a resident of Leichhardt, Sydney, in 1924. She began the tradition during a visit to a patient at the Newington State Home for Women, where she met many lonely and forgotten mothers. To cheer them up, she rounded up support from local school children and businesses to donate and bring gifts to the women. Every year thereafter, Mrs Heyden raised increasing support for the project from local businesses and even the local Mayor. The day has since become commercialised.

text: Belarus[edit]

text: Belarus celebrates Mother's Day on 14 October. Like other ex-Communist republics, Belarus used to celebrate only the International Women Day on 8 March. Mother's Day in Belarus was officially established by the Belarus government, and it was celebrated for the first time in 1996.[39] The celebration of the Virgin Mary (the holiday of Protection of the Holy Mother of God) is celebrated in the same day.[53]

text: Bhutan[edit]

text: Mother's Day in Bhutan is celebrated on 8 May. It was introduced in Bhutan by the Tourism Council of Bhutan.[54]

text: Belgium[edit]

text: In Belgium, Mother's Day (Moederdag or Moederkesdag in Dutch and Fête des Mères in French) is celebrated on the second Sunday of May. In the week before this holiday children make little presents at primary school, which they give to their mothers in the early morning of Mother's Day. Typically, the father will buy croissants and other sweet breads and pastries and bring these to the mother while she is still in bed – the beginning of a day of pampering for the mother. There are also many people who celebrate Mother's Day on 15 August instead; these are mostly people around Antwerp, who consider that day (Assumption) the classical Mother's Day and the observance in May an invention for commercial reasons. It was originally established on that day as the result of a campaign by Frans Van Kuyck, a painter and Alderman from Antwerp.[citation needed]

text: Bolivia[edit]

text: In Bolivia, Mother's Day is celebrated on 27 May. El Día de la Madre Boliviana was passed into law on 8 November 1927, during the presidency of Hernando Siles Reyes. The date commemorates the Battle of La Coronilla, which took place on 27 May 1812, during the Bolivian War of Independence, in what is now the city of Cochabamba. In this battle, women fighting for the country's independence were slaughtered by the Spanish army. It is not a public holiday, but all schools hold activities and festivities throughout the day.[20]

text: Brazil[edit]

text: In Brazil, Mother's Day is celebrated on the second Sunday of May. The first Mother's Day in Brazil was promoted by Associação Cristã de Moços de Porto Alegre (Young Men's Christian Association of Porto Alegre) on 12 May 1918. In 1932, then President Getúlio Vargas made the second Sunday of May the official date for Mother's Day. In 1947, Archbishop Jaime de Barros Câmara, Cardinal-Archbishop of Rio de Janeiro, decided that this holiday would also be included in the official calendar of the Catholic Church.[citation needed]

text: Mother's Day is not an official holiday (see Public holidays in Brazil), but it is widely observed and typically involves spending time with and giving gifts to one's mother. Because of this, it is considered one of the celebrations most related to consumerism in the country, second only to Christmas Day as the most commercially lucrative holiday.[55]

text: Canada[edit]

text: Mother's Day in Canada is celebrated on the second Sunday in May (it is not a public holiday or bank holiday), and typically involves small celebrations and gift-giving to one's mother, grandmother, or other important female figures in one's family.[citation needed] Celebratory practices are very similar to those of other western nations. A Québécois tradition is for Québécois men to offer roses or other flowers to the women.[citation needed]

text: China[edit]

text: Mother's Day is becoming more popular in China. Carnations are a very popular Mother's Day gift and the most sold flowers in relation to the day.[56] In 1997 Mother's Day was set as the day to help poor mothers and to remind people of the poor mothers in rural areas such as China's western region.[56] In the People's Daily, the Chinese government's official newspaper, an article explained that "despite originating in the United States, people in China accept the holiday without hesitation because it is in line with the country's traditional ethics – respect for the elderly and filial piety towards parents."[56]

text: In recent years, the Communist Party member Li Hanqiu began to advocate for the official adoption of Mother's Day in memory of Meng Mu, the mother of Mèng Zǐ. He formed a non-governmental organization called Chinese Mothers' Festival Promotion Society, with the support of 100 Confucian scholars and lecturers of ethics.[57][58] Li and the Society want to replace the Western-style gift of carnations with lilies, which, in ancient times, were planted by Chinese mothers when children left home.[58] Mother's Day remains an unofficial festival, except in a small number of cities.[citation needed]

text: Czech Republic[edit]

text: In the Czech Republic, Mother's Day is celebrated every second Sunday in May. It started in former Czechoslovakia in 1923.[32] The promoter of this celebration was Alice Masaryková.[32] After World War II communists replaced Mother's Day with International Woman's Day, celebrated on 8 March.[32] The former Czechoslovakia celebrated Women's Day until the Velvet Revolution in 1989.[32] After the split of the country in 1993, the Czech Republic started celebrating Mother's Day again.[32]

text: Egypt[edit]

text: Mother's Day in Egypt is celebrated on 21 March, the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. It was introduced in Egypt by journalist Mustafa Amin[51] in his book Smiling America (1943). The idea was overlooked at the time. Later Amin heard the story of a widowed mother who devoted her whole life to raising her son until he became a doctor. The son then married and left without showing any gratitude to his mother. Hearing this, Amin became motivated to promote "Mother's Day". The idea was first ridiculed by president Gamal Abdel Nasser but he eventually accepted it and Mother's Day was first celebrated on 21 March 1956. The practice has since been copied by other Arab countries.[citation needed]

text: When Mustafa Amin was arrested and imprisoned, there were attempts to change the name of the holiday from "Mother's Day" to "Family Day" as the government wished to prevent the occasion from reminding people of its founder. These attempts were unsuccessful and celebrations continued to be held on that day; classic songs celebrating mothers remain famous to this day.[citation needed]

text: Ethiopia[edit]

text: Mother's Day is celebrated for three days in Ethiopia, after the end of rainy season. It comes in mid-fall where people enjoy a three-day feast called "Antrosht".[59]

text: For the feast, ingredients will be brought by the children for a traditional hash recipe. The ingredients are divided along genders, with girls bringing spices, vegetables, cheese and butter, while the boys bring a lamb or bull. The mother hands out to the family the hash.[60]

text: A celebration takes place after the meal. The mothers and daughters anoint themselves using butter on their faces and chests. While honoring their family and heroes, men sing songs.[61]

text: Estonia[edit]

text: In Estonia, Mother's Day (emadepäev in Estonian) is celebrated on the second Sunday of May. It is recognized nationally, but is not a public holiday.[62]

text: Finland[edit]

text: In Finland, Mother's Day (äitienpäivä in Finnish) is celebrated on the second Sunday of May. It is recognized nationally, and is a public holiday. It is usually celebrated at homes where children or grandchildren bring Mother´s day cards that they have drawn to their mothers and grandmothers. Usually some food, coffee and cakes are served for guests. Grown up children visit their parents homes and bring traditionally Mother´s day roses or other flowers accompanied with a Mother´s day card. The president of Finland honors with medals every year some mothers who have done something exceptional and positive during the year. [63]

text: France[edit]

text: In France, amidst alarm at the low birth rate, there were attempts in 1896 and 1904 to create a national celebration honoring the mothers of large families.[64] In 1906 ten mothers who had nine children each were given an award recognising "High Maternal Merit" ("Haut mérite maternel").[65] American World War I soldiers fighting in France popularized the US Mother's Day holiday created by Anna Jarvis. They sent so much mail back to their country for Mother's Day that the Union Franco-Américaine created a postal card for that purpose.[64] In 1918, also inspired by Jarvis, the town of Lyon wanted to celebrate a "journée des Mères", but instead decided to celebrate a "Journée Nationale des Mères de familles nombreuses." The holiday was more inspired by anti-depopulation efforts than by the US holiday, with medals awarded to the mothers of large families.[64] The French government made the day official in 1920 as a day for mothers of large families.[66] Since then the French government awards the Médaille de la Famille française to mothers of large families.[citation needed]

text: In 1941, by initiative of Philippe Pétain, the wartime Vichy government used the celebration in support of their policy to encourage larger families, but all mothers were now honored, even mothers with smaller families.[66]

text: In 1950, after the war, the celebration was reinstated. The law of 24 May 1950 required that the Republic pay official homage to French Mothers on the last Sunday in May as the "Fête des Mères" (except when Pentecost fell on that day, in which case it was moved to the first Sunday in June).[citation needed]

text: During the 1950s, the celebration lost all its patriotic and natalist ideologies, and became heavily commercialized.[64]

text: In 1956, the celebration was given a budget and integrated into the new Code de l'action Sociale et des familles. In 2004 responsibility for the holiday was transferred to the Minister responsible for families.[citation needed]

text: Georgia[edit]

text: Georgia celebrates Mother's Day on 3 March. It was declared by the first President of Georgia Zviad Gamsakhurdia in order to replace the International Women Day, and it was officially approved by the Supreme Council in 1991. Nowadays Georgia celebrates both Mother's Day on 3 March and International Women's Day on 8 March.[23]

text: Germany[edit]

text: In the 1920s, Germany had the lowest birthrate in Europe, and the declining trend was continuing. This was attributed to women's participation in the labor market. At the same time, influential groups in society (politicians of left and right, churchwomen, and feminists) believed that mothers should be honored but could not agree on how to do so. However, all groups strongly agreed on the promotion of the values of motherhood. In 1923, this resulted in the unanimous adoption of Muttertag, the Mother's Day holiday as imported from America[citation needed] and Norway. The head of the Association of German Florists cited "the inner conflict of our Volk and the loosening of the family" as his reason for introducing the holiday. He expected that the holiday would unite the divided country. In 1925, the Mother's Day Committee joined the task force for the recovery of the volk, and the holiday stopped depending on commercial interests and began emphasizing the need to increase the population in Germany by promoting motherhood.[67]

text: The holiday was then seen as a means to encourage women to bear more children, which nationalists saw as a way to rejuvenate the nation. The holiday did not celebrate individual women, but an idealized standard of motherhood. The progressive forces resisted the implementation of the holiday because it was backed by so many conservatives, and because they saw it as a way to eliminate the rights of working women. Die Frau, the newspaper of the Federation of German Women's Associations, refused to recognize the holiday. Many local authorities adopted their own interpretation of the holiday: it would be a day to support economically larger families or single-mother families. The guidelines for the subsidies had eugenics criteria, but there is no indication that social workers ever implemented them in practice, and subsidies were given preferentially to families in economic need rather than to families with more children or "healthier" children.[67]

text: With the Nazi party in power during 1933–1945, the situation changed radically. The promotion of Mother's Day increased in many European countries, including the UK and France. From the position of the German Nazi government, the role of mothers was to give healthy children to the German nation. The Nazi party's intention was to create a pure "Aryan race" according to nazi eugenics. Among other Mother's Day ideas, the government promoted the death of a mother's sons in battle as the highest embodiment of patriotic motherhood.[67][68]

text: The Nazis quickly declared Mother's Day an official holiday and put it under the control of the NSV (National Socialist People's Welfare Association) and the NSF (National Socialist Women Organization). This created conflicts with other organizations that resented Nazi control of the holiday, including Catholic and Protestant churches and local women's organizations. Local authorities resisted the guidelines from the Nazi government and continued assigning resources to families who were in economic need, much to the dismay of the Nazi officials.[67]

text: In 1938, the government began issuing an award called Mother's Cross (Mutterkreuz), according to categories that depended on the number of children a mother had. The medal was awarded on Mother's Day and also on other holidays due to the large number of recipients. The Cross was an effort to encourage women to have more children, and recipients were required to have at least four.[67][68]

text: By country (H–M)[edit]

text: Hungary[edit]

text: In Hungary, Mother's Day is celebrated on the first Sunday of May. It was first celebrated in 1925 by the Hungarian Red Cross Youth.[citation needed]

text: India[edit]

text: The modern Mother's Day has been assimilated into Indian culture,[69] and it is celebrated every year on the second Sunday of May.[70] Indians do not celebrate the occasion as a religious event, and it is celebrated primarily in urban centers.

text: Indonesia[edit]

text: Indonesian Mother's Day (Indonesian: Hari Ibu) is celebrated nationally on 22 December. The date was made an official holiday by President Soekarno under Presidential Decree (Indonesian: Dekrit Presiden) no. 316 in 1953, on the 25th anniversary of the 1928 Indonesian Women Congress. The day originally sought to celebrate the spirit of Indonesian women and to improve the condition of the nation. Today, the meaning of Mother's Day has changed, and it is celebrated by expressing love and gratitude to mothers. People present gifts to mothers (such as flowers) and hold surprise parties and competitions, which include cooking and kebaya wearing. People also allow mothers a day off from domestic chores.[71]

text: The holiday is celebrated on the anniversary of the opening day of the first Indonesian Women Congress (Indonesian: Kongres Perempuan Indonesia), which was held from 22 to 25 December 1928.[43][72] The Congress took place in a building called Dalem Jayadipuran, which now serves as the office of the Center of History and Traditional Values Preservation (Indonesian: Balai Pelestarian Sejarah dan Nilai Tradisional) in Brigjen Katamso Street, Yogyakarta. The Congress was attended by 30 feminist organizations from 12 cities in Java and Sumatra. In Indonesia, feminist organizations have existed since 1912, inspired by Indonesian heroines of the 19th century, e.g., Kartini, Martha Christina Tiahahu, Cut Nyak Meutia, Maria Walanda Maramis, Dewi Sartika, Nyai Ahmad Dahlan, Rasuna Said, etc.[43] The Congress intended to improve women's rights in education and marriage.[73]

text: Indonesia also celebrates the Kartini Day (Indonesian: Hari Kartini) on 21 April, in memory of activist Raden Ajeng Kartini. This is a celebration of the emancipation of women.[72] The observance was instituted at the 1938 Indonesian Women Congress.[73]

text: During President Suharto's New Order (1965–1998), government propaganda used Mother's Day and Kartini Day to inculcate into women the idea that they should be docile and stay at home.[73]

text: Iran[edit]

text: In Iran, Mother's Day is celebrated on 20 Jumada al-thani. This is the sixth month in the Islamic calendar (a lunar calendar) and every year the holiday falls on a different day of the Gregorian calendar. This is the birthday anniversary of Fatimah,[46][74] Prophet Muhammad's only daughter according to Shia Islam orthodoxy. Mother's Day was originally observed on 16 December but the date was changed after the Iranian Revolution in 1979. The celebration is both Women's Day (replacing International Women's Day) and Mother's Day.[46][75]

text: In 1960, the Institute for Women Protection adopted the Western holiday and established it on 25 Azar (16 December), the date the Institute was founded. The Institute's action had the support of Queen Farah Pahlavi, the wife of the last Shah of Persia, who promoted the construction of maternity clinics in remote parts of the country to commemorate the day. The government used the holiday to promote its maternalist view of women. The Shah's government honored and gave awards to women who represented the idealized view of the regime, including mothers who had many healthy children.[76]

text: The Islamic Republic government is accused of using the holiday as a tool to undercut feminist movements and to promote role models for the traditional concept of family. Fatimah is seen by these critics as the chosen model of a woman completely dedicated to certain traditionally sanctioned feminine roles.[46][77][78] However, supporters of the choice contend that there is much more to her life story than simply such "traditional" roles.[citation needed]

text: Israel[edit]

text: The Jewish population of Israel used to celebrate Mother's Day on Shevat 30 of the Jewish calendar, which falls between 30 January and 1 March. The celebration was set as the same date that Henrietta Szold died (13 February 1945). Henrietta had no biological children, but her organization Youth Aliyah rescued many Jewish children from Nazi Germany and provided for them. She also championed children's rights. Szold is considered the "mother" of all those children, and that is why her annual remembrance day (יום השנה) was set as Mother's Day (יוֹם הָאֵם, yom ha'em). The holiday has evolved over time, becoming a celebration of mutual love inside the family, called Family Day (יוֹם הַמִשְּפָּחָה, yom hamishpacha). This holiday is mainly celebrated in preschools with an activity to which parents are invited. Mother's Day is mainly celebrated by children at kindergartens. There are no longer mutual gifts among members of the family, and there is no longer any commercialization of the celebration. It is not an official holiday.[36]

text: Italy[edit]

text: Mother's Day in Italy was celebrated for the first time on 24 December 1933 as the "Day of the mother and the child" (Giornata della madre e del fanciullo). It was instituted by the Opera nazionale maternità e infanzia in order to publicly reward the most prolific Italian women every year.[79]

text: After World War II, Mother's Day was first celebrated on 12 May 1957 in Assisi, at the initiative of Reverend Otello Migliosi, the parish priest of the Tordibetto church.[80] This celebration was so popular that in the following year Mother's Day was adopted throughout Italy. On 18 December 1958, a proposal was presented to the Italian Senate to make the holiday official.[81]

text: Japan[edit]

text: In Japan, Mother's Day (母の日, Haha no Hi) was initially commemorated during the Shōwa period as the birthday of Empress Kōjun (mother of Emperor Akihito) on 6 March. This was established in 1931 when the Imperial Women's Union was organized. In 1937, the first meeting of "Praise Mothers" was held on 8 May, and in 1949 Japanese society adopted the second Sunday of May as the official date for Mother's Day in Japan. Today, people typically give their mothers gifts of flowers such as red carnations and roses.[citation needed]Japan is most known for giving carnations on Mother's Day.

text: Kyrgyzstan[edit]

text: In Kyrgyzstan, Mother's Day is celebrated on 19 May every year. The holiday was first celebrated in 2012.[82] Mothers are also honored on International Women's Day[83]

text: Latvia[edit]

text: Mother's Day in Latvia was celebrated for the first time in 1922. Since 1934, Mother's Day is celebrated on the second Sunday of May.[84] After the end of the soviet occupation of Baltic states celebration was resumed in 1992.[85] Mothers are also honored on International Women's Day.[citation needed]

text: Lithuania[edit]

text: In Lithuania, Mother's Day is celebrated on the first Sunday of May.

text: Maldives[edit]

text: In the Maldives, Mother's Day is celebrated on 13 May. The day is celebrated in different ways. Children give gifts and spend time with their mothers. Daughters give their mothers cards and handmade gifts and sons give their mothers gifts and flowers. Maldivians love to celebrate Mother's day, and they have it specially written on their calendar.[citation needed]

text: Malta[edit]

text: The first mention of Mother's Day in Malta occurred during the Radio Children's Programmes run by Frans H. Said in May 1961. Within a few years, Mother's Day became one of the most popular dates in the Maltese calendar. In Malta, this day is commemorated on the second Sunday in May. Mothers are invariably given gifts and invited for lunch, usually at a good quality restaurant.[citation needed]

text: Mexico[edit]

text: In Mexico, the government of Álvaro Obregón imported the Mother's Day holiday from the US in 1922, and the newspaper Excélsior held a massive promotional campaign for the holiday that year.[86] The conservative government tried to use the holiday to promote a more conservative role for mothers in families, but that perspective was criticized by the socialists as promoting an unrealistic image of a woman who was not good for much more than breeding.[86]

text: In the mid-1930s, the leftist government of Lázaro Cárdenas promoted the holiday as a "patriotic festival". The Cárdenas government tried to use the holiday as a vehicle for various efforts: to stress the importance of families as the basis for national development; to benefit from the loyalty that Mexicans felt towards their mothers; to introduce new morals to Mexican women; and to reduce the influence that the church and the Catholic right exerted over women.[87] The government sponsored the holiday in the schools.[87] However, ignoring the strict guidelines from the government, theatre plays were filled with religious icons and themes. Consequently, the "national celebrations" became "religious fiestas" despite the efforts of the government.[87]

text: Soledad Orozco García, the wife of President Manuel Ávila Camacho, promoted the holiday during the 1940s, resulting in an important state-sponsored celebration.[88] The 1942 celebration lasted a full week and included an announcement that all women could reclaim their pawned sewing machines from the Monte de Piedad at no cost.[88]

text: Due to Orozco's promotion, the Catholic National Synarchist Union (UNS) took heed of the holiday around 1941.[89] Shop-owner members of the Party of the Mexican Revolution (now the Institutional Revolutionary Party) observed a custom allowing women from humble classes to pick a free Mother's Day gift from a shop to bring home to their families. The Synarchists worried that this promoted both materialism and the idleness of lower classes, and in turn, reinforced the systemic social problems of the country.[90] Currently this holiday practice is viewed as very conservative, but the 1940s' UNS saw Mother's Day as part of the larger debate on the modernization that was happening at the time.[91] This economic modernization was inspired by US models and was sponsored by the state. The fact that the holiday was originally imported from the US was seen as evidence of an attempt at imposing capitalism and materialism in Mexican society.[91]

text: The UNS and the clergy of the city of León interpreted the government's actions as an effort to secularize the holiday and to promote a more active role for women in society. They concluded that the government's long-term goal was to cause women to abandon their traditional roles at home in order to spiritually weaken men.[91] They also saw the holiday as an attempt to secularize the cult to the Virgin Mary, inside a larger effort to dechristianize several holidays. The government sought to counter these claims by organizing widespread masses and asking religious women to assist with the state-sponsored events in order to "depaganize" them.[92] The clergy preferred to promote 2 July celebration of the Santísima Virgen de la Luz, the patron of León, Guanajuato, in replacement of Mother's Day.[89] In 1942, at the same time as Soledad's greatest celebration of Mother's Day, the clergy organized the 210th celebration of the Virgin Mary with a large parade in León.[92]

text: There is a consensus among scholars that the Mexican government abandoned its revolutionary initiatives during the 1940s, including its efforts to influence Mother's Day.[89]

text: Today the "Día de las Madres" is an unofficial holiday in Mexico held each year on 10 May,[93] the day on which it was first celebrated in Mexico.[94]

text: In Mexico, to show affection and appreciation to the mother, it is traditional to start the celebration with the famous song "Las Mañanitas", either a cappella, with the help of a mariachi or a contracted trio. Many families usually gather to celebrate this special day trying to spend as much time as possible with mothers to honor them on their day. They are organized to bring some dishes and eat all together or maybe to visit any restaurant.[citation needed]

text: By country (N–S)[edit]

text: Nepal[edit]

text: In Nepal, there is a festival equivalent to Mother's Day, called Mata Tirtha Aunsi ("Mother Pilgrimage New Moon"), or Mata Tirtha Puja ("Mother Pilgrimage Worship"). It is celebrated according to the lunar calendar. It falls on the last day of the dark fortnight in the month of Baishakh which falls in April–May (in 2015, it will occur on 18 April). The dark fortnight lasts for 15 days from the full moon to the new moon. This festival is observed to commemorate and honor mothers, and it is celebrated by giving gifts to mothers and remembering mothers who are no more.[citation needed]

text: To honor mothers who have died, it is the tradition to go on a pilgrimage to the Mata Tirtha ponds, located 6 km to the southwest of downtown Kathmandu. The nearby Mata Tirtha village is named after these ponds. Previously, the tradition was observed primarily by the Newar community and other people living in the Kathmandu Valley. Now this festival is widely celebrated across the country.[citation needed]

text: Many tragic folklore legends have been created, suggesting different reasons why this pond became a pilgrimage site. The most popular version says that, in ancient times, the mother of a shepherd died, and he made offerings to a nearby pond. There he saw the face of his mother in the water, with her hand taking the offerings. Since then, many people visited the pond, hoping to see their deceased mother's face. Pilgrims believe that they will bring peace to their mother's souls by visiting the sacred place. There are two ponds. The larger one is for ritual bathing. The smaller one is used to "look upon mother's face", and it's fenced by iron bars to prevent people from bathing on it.[citation needed]

text: Traditionally, in the Kathmandu valley the South-Western corner is reserved for women and women-related rituals, and the North-Eastern is for men and men-related rituals. The worship place for Mata Tirtha Aunsi is located in Mata Tirtha in the South-Western half of the valley, while the worship place for Gokarna Aunsi, the equivalent celebration for deceased fathers, is located in Gokarna, Nepal, in the North-Eastern half. This division is reflected in many aspects of the life in Kathmandu valley.[95]

text: Mother's Day is known as Aama ko Mukh Herne Din in Nepali, which literally means "day to see mother's face". In Nepal Bhasa, the festival is known as Mām yā Khwā Swayegu, which can be translated as "to look upon mother's face".[citation needed]

text: Netherlands[edit]

text: In the Netherlands, Mother's Day was introduced as early as 1910 by the Dutch branch of the Salvation Army.[96] The Royal Dutch Society for Horticulture and Botany, a group protecting the interest of Dutch florists, worked to promote the holiday; they hoped to emulate the commercial success achieved by American florists.[97] They were imitating the campaign already underway by florists in Germany and Austria, but they were aware that the traditions had originated in the US.[97]

text: Florists launched a major promotional effort in 1925. This included the publication of a book of articles written by famous intellectuals, radio broadcasts, newspapers ads, and the collaboration of priests and teachers who wanted to promote the celebration for their own reasons.[97] In 1931 the second Sunday of May was adopted as the official celebration date. In the mid-1930s the slogan Moederdag – Bloemendag (Mother's Day – Flowers' Day) was coined, and the phrase was popular for many years.[98] In the 1930s and 1940's "Mother's Day cakes" were given as gifts in hospitals and to the Dutch Queen, who is known as the "mother of the country".[98] Other trade groups tried to cash in on the holiday and to give new meaning to the holiday in order to promote their own wares as gifts.[98]

text: Roman Catholic priests complained that the holiday interfered with the honoring of the Virgin Mary, the divine mother, which took place during the whole month of May. In 1926 Mother's Day was celebrated on 7 July in order to address these complaints.[99] Catholic organizations and priests tried to Christianize the holiday, but those attempts were rendered futile around the 1960s when the church lost influence and the holiday was completely secularized.[99]

text: In later years, the initial resistance disappeared, and even leftist newspapers stopped their criticism and endorsed Mother's Day.[100]

text: In the 1980s, the American origin of the holiday was still not widely known, so feminist groups who opposed the perpetuation of gender roles sometimes claimed that Mother's Day was invented by Nazis and celebrated on the birthday of Klara Hitler, Hitler's mother.[101]

text: New Zealand[edit]

text: In New Zealand, Mother's Day is celebrated on the second Sunday in May. Mother's Day is not a public holiday. The New Zealand tradition is to give cards and gifts and to serve mothers breakfast in bed.[citation needed]

text: Nicaragua[edit]

text: In Nicaragua, the Día de la Madre has been celebrated on 30 May since the early 1940s. The date was chosen by President Anastasio Somoza García because it was the birthday of Casimira Sacasa, his wife's mother.[38]

text: North Korea[edit]

text: Mother's Day is celebrated on 16 November as a public holiday in North Korea. The date takes its significance from the First National Meeting of Mothers held in 1961, for which Kim Il-sung, the leader of the country, published a work called The Duty of Mothers in the Education of Children. The date was designated as Mother's Day in May 2012 by the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly but only became a public holiday and appeared on the North Korean calendar starting in 2015.[41]

text: Norway[edit]

text: Mother's Day was first celebrated on 9 February 1919 and was initially organized by religious institutions. Later it has become a family day, and the mother is often treated to breakfast in bed, flowers and cake.[102][better source needed]

text: It has gradually become a major commercial event, with special pastries, flowers and other presents offered by retailers. Day-cares and primary schools often encourage children to make cards and other gifts.[citation needed]

text: Pakistan[edit]

text: In Pakistan, Mother's Day is celebrated on the second Sunday of May. Media channels celebrate with special shows. Individuals honor their mothers by giving gifts and commemorative articles. Individuals who have lost their mothers pray and pay their respects to their loved ones lost. Schools hold special programs in order to acknowledge the efforts of their mothers.[103]

text: Panama[edit]

text: In Panama, Mother's Day is celebrated on 8 December, the same day as the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. This date was suggested in 1930 by the wife of Panama's President Florencio Harmodio Arosemena. 8 December was adopted as Mother's Day under Law 69, which was passed the same year.[42]

text: According to another account, in 1924 the Rotary Club of Panama asked that Mother's Day be celebrated on 11 May. Politician Aníbal D. Ríos changed the proposal so that the celebration would be held on 8 December. He then established Mother's Day as a national holiday on that date.[104]

text: Paraguay[edit]

text: In Paraguay, Mother's Day is celebrated on 15 May, the same day as the Dia de la Patria, which celebrates the independence of Paraguay.[35] This date was chosen to honor the role played by Juana María de Lara in the events of 14 May 1811 that led to Paraguay's independence.[105]

text: In 2008, the Paraguayan Minister of Culture, Bruno Barrios, lamented this coincidence because, in Paraguay, Mother's Day is much more popular than independence day and the independence celebration goes unnoticed. As a result, Barrios asked that the celebration be moved to the end of the month.[106] A group of young people attempted to gather 20,000 signatures to ask the Parliament to move Mother's Day.[106] In 2008, the Comisión de festejos (Celebration Committee) of the city of Asunción asked that Mother's Day be moved to the second Sunday of May.[107]

text: Philippines[edit]

text: In the Philippines, Mother's Day is officially celebrated on the second Sunday of May, but it is not a public holiday.[108] Although not a traditional Filipino holiday, the occasion owes its popularity to American Colonial Period influence.

text: According to a 2008 article by the Philippine News Agency, in 1921 the Ilocos Norte Federation of Women's Clubs asked to declare the first Monday of December as Mother's Day "to honor these fabulous women who brought forth God's children into this world." In response, Governor-General Charles Yeater issued Circular No. 33 declaring the celebration. In 1937 President Manuel L. Quezon issued Presidential Proclamation No. 213, changing the name of the occasion from "Mother's Day" to "Parent's Day" to address the complaints that there wasn't a "Father's Day". In 1980 President Ferdinand Marcos issued Presidential Proclamation No. 2037 proclaiming the date as both Mother's Day and Father's Day. In 1988 President Corazon Aquino issued Presidential Proclamation No. 266, changing Mother's Day to the second Sunday of May, and Father's Day to the third Sunday of June, discontinuing the traditional date.[109] In 1998 President Joseph Estrada returned both celebrations to the first Monday of December.[108]

text: Portugal[edit]

text: In Portugal, the "Dia da Mãe" ("Mother's Day") is an unofficial holiday held each year on the first Sunday of May (sometimes coinciding with Labour Day). The weeks leading up to this Sunday, school children spend a few hours a day to prepare a gift for their mothers, aided by their school teachers. In general, mothers receive gifts by their family members and this day is meant to be celebrated with the whole family. It used to be celebrated on the 8th December, the same date of the Conception of the Virgin celebration.[citation needed]

text: Romania[edit]

text: In Romania, Mother's Day has been celebrated on the first Sunday of May since 2010. Law 319/2009 made both Mother's Day and Father's Day official holidays in Romania. The measure was passed thanks to campaign efforts from the Alliance Fighting Discrimination Against Fathers (TATA).[110] Previously, Mother's Day was celebrated on 8 March, as part of International Women's Day (a tradition dating back to when Romania was part of the Eastern bloc). Today, Mother's Day and International Women's Day are two separate holidays, with International Women's Day being held on its original date of 8 March.[citation needed]

text: Russia[edit]

text: Traditionally Russia had celebrated International Women's Day and Mother's Day on 8 March, an inheritance from the Soviet Union, and a public holiday.[111]

text: Women's Day was first celebrated on the last Sunday in February in 1913 in Russia.[112]

text: In 1917, demonstrations marking International Women's Day in Saint Petersburg on the last Sunday in February (which fell on 8 March on the Gregorian calendar) initiated the February Revolution. Following the October Revolution later that year, the Bolshevik Alexandra Kollontai persuaded Vladimir Lenin to make it an official holiday in the Soviet Union, and it was established, but was a working day until 1965.[citation needed]

text: On 8 May 1965, by the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, International Women's Day was declared a non-working day in the Soviet Union "in commemoration of the outstanding merits of Soviet women in communistic construction, in the defense of their Fatherland during the Great Patriotic War, in their heroism and selflessness at the front and in the rear, and also marking the great contribution of women to strengthening friendship between peoples, and the struggle for peace. But still, women's day must be celebrated as are other holidays."[113]

text: Samoa[edit]

text: In Samoa, Mother's Day is celebrated on the second Sunday in May, and as a recognised national holiday on the Monday following.

text: Singapore[edit]

text: In Singapore, Mother's Day is celebrated on the second Sunday of May. It is not recognized as a holiday by the government.

text: Slovakia[edit]

text: Czechoslovakia celebrated only Women's Day until the Velvet Revolution in 1989. After the country split in 1993, Slovakia started celebrating both Women's Day and Mother's Day. The politicization of Women's Day has affected the official status of Mother's Day. Center-right parties want Mother's Day to replace Women's Day, and social-democrats want to make Women's Day an official holiday. Currently, both days are festive, but they are not "state holidays". In the Slovak Republic, Mother's Day is celebrated every second Sunday in May.[32]

text: South Africa[edit]

text: In South Africa, Mother's Day is celebrated on the second Sunday of May. It is not recognized as a holiday by the government. The tradition is to give cards and gifts and to serve mothers breakfast in bed or to go out to lunch together as a family.

text: South Sudan[edit]

text: In South Sudan, Mother's Day is celebrated on the first Monday in July. The president Salva Kiir Mayardit proclaimed Mother's Day as the first Monday in July after handing over from Sudan. Children in South Sudan are presenting mothers with gifts and flowers. The first Mother's Day was held in that country on 2 July 2012.[citation needed]

text: Spain[edit]

text: In Spain, Mother's Day or Día de la Madre is celebrated on the first Sunday of May. The weeks leading up to this Sunday, school children spend a few hours a day to prepare a gift for their mothers, aided by their school teachers. In general, mothers receive gifts by their family members & this day is meant to be celebrated with the whole family. It is also said to be celebrated in May, as May is the month dedicated to the Virgin Mary (mother of Jesus) according to Catholicism.[citation needed]

text: Sri Lanka[edit]

text: In Sri Lanka, Mother's Day is celebrated on the second Sunday of May.

text: Sweden[edit]

text: In Sweden, Mother's Day was first celebrated in 1919, by initiative of the author Cecilia Bååth-Holmberg. It took several decades for the day to be widely recognized. Swedes born in the early nineteen hundreds typically did not celebrate the day because of the common belief that the holiday was invented strictly for commercial purposes. This was in contrast to Father's Day, which has been widely celebrated in Sweden since the late 1970s. Mother's Day in Sweden is celebrated on the last Sunday in May. A later date was chosen to allow everyone to go outside and pick flowers.[citation needed]

text: Switzerland[edit]

text: In Switzerland, the "règle de Pentecôte" law allows Mother's Day to be celebrated a week late if the holiday falls on the same day as Pentecost. In 2008, merchants declined to move the date.[114]

text: By country (T–Z)[edit]

text: Taiwan[edit]

text: In Taiwan, Mother's Day is celebrated on the second Sunday of the month of May, coinciding with Buddha's birthday and the traditional ceremony of "washing the Buddha". In 1999 the Taiwanese government established the second Sunday of May as Buddha's birthday, so they would be celebrated in the same day.[115][116]

text: Since 2006,[117] the Tzu Chi, the largest charity organization in Taiwan, celebrates the Tzu Chi Day, Mother's Day and Buddha's birthday all together, as part of a unified celebration and religious observance.[118][119][120]

text: Thailand[edit]

text: Mother's day in Thailand is celebrated on the birthday of the Queen of Thailand, Queen Sirikit (12 August).[121] The holiday was first celebrated around the 1980s as part of the campaign by the Prime Minister of Thailand Prem Tinsulanonda to promote Thailand's Royal family.[122] Father's Day is celebrated on the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej's birthday.[122]

text: Ukraine[edit]

text: Ukraine celebrates Mother's Day (Ukrainian: День Матері) on the second Sunday of May. In Ukraine, Mother's Day officially became a holiday only in 1999[123] and is celebrated since 2000. Since then Ukrainian society struggles to transition the main holiday that recognizes woman from the International Women's Day, a holiday adopted under the Soviet Union that remained as a legacy in Ukraine after its collapse, to Mother's Day.[citation needed]

text: United Kingdom[edit]

text: The United Kingdom celebrates Mothering Sunday, which falls on the fourth Sunday of Lent (26 March in 2017). This holiday has its roots in the church and was originally unrelated to the American holiday.[5][124] Most historians believe that Mothering Sunday evolved from the 16th-century Christian practice of visiting one's mother church annually on Laetare Sunday.[125] As a result of this tradition, most mothers were reunited with their children on this day when young apprentices and young women in service were released by their masters for that weekend. As a result of the influence of the American Mother's Day, Mothering Sunday transformed into the tradition of showing appreciation to one's mother. The holiday is still recognized in the original historical sense by many churches, with attention paid to Mary the mother of Jesus Christ and the concept of the Mother Church.[citation needed]

text: The custom was still popular by the start of the 19th century, but with the Industrial Revolution, traditions changed and the Mothering Day customs declined.[124] By 1935, Mothering Sunday was less celebrated in Europe.[citation needed] Constance Penswick-Smith worked unsuccessfully to revive the festival in the 1910s–1920s. However, US World War II soldiers brought the US Mother's Day celebration to the UK,[126] and the holiday was merged with the Mothering Sunday traditions still celebrated in the Church of England.[127] By the 1950s, the celebration became popular again in the whole of the UK, thanks to the efforts of UK merchants, who saw in the festival a great commercial opportunity.[127] People from UK started celebrating Mother's Day on the fourth Sunday of Lent, the same day on which Mothering Sunday had been celebrated for centuries. Some Mothering Sunday traditions were revived, such as the tradition of eating cake on that day, although celebrants now eat simnel cake[25] instead of the cakes that were traditionally prepared at that time.[citation needed] The traditions of the two holidays are now mixed together and celebrated on the same day, although many people are not aware that the festivities have quite separate origins.[128]

text: Mothering Sunday can fall at the earliest on 1 March (in years when Easter Day falls on 22 March) and at the latest on 4 April (when Easter Day falls on 25 April).[citation needed]

text: United States[edit]

text: The United States celebrates Mother's Day on the second Sunday in May. In 1872 Julia Ward Howe called for women to join in support of disarmament and asked for 2 June 1872, to be established as a "Mother's Day for Peace". Her 1870 "Appeal to womanhood throughout the world" is sometimes referred to as Mother's Day Proclamation. But Howe's day was not for honouring mothers but for organizing pacifist mothers against war. In the 1880s and 1890s there were several further attempts to establish an American "Mother's Day", but these did not succeed beyond the local level.[129]

text: In the United States, Mother's Day remains one of the biggest days for sales of flowers, greeting cards, and the like; Mother's Day is also the biggest holiday for long-distance telephone calls.[130] Moreover, churchgoing is also popular on Mother's Day, yielding the highest church attendance after Christmas Eve and Easter. Many worshippers celebrate the day with carnations, coloured if the mother is living and white if she is dead.[131]

text: Mother's Day continues to be one of the most commercially successful U.S. occasions.[132]

text: It is possible that the holiday would have withered over time without the support and continuous promotion of the florist industries and other commercial industries. Other Protestant holidays from the same time, such as Children's Day and Temperance Sunday, do not have the same level of popularity.[133]


document_title: Proprietary software

question_text: which type of software has no restrictions from the copyright holder and can be modified

root

text: Proprietary software

text: Software becoming proprietary[edit]

text: Until the late 1960s computers—large and expensive mainframe computers, machines in specially air-conditioned computer rooms—were leased to customers rather than sold.[3][4] Service and all software available were usually supplied by manufacturers without separate charge until 1969.[citation needed] Computer vendors usually provided the source code for installed software to customers.[citation needed] Customers who developed software often made it available to others without charge.[5] Closed source means computer programs whose source code is not published. It is available to be edited only by the organization by which it is developed.

tag: p

text: In 1969, IBM, which had antitrust lawsuits pending against it, led an industry change by starting to charge separately for mainframe software[6][7][page needed] and services, by unbundling hardware and software.[8]

text: Bill Gates' "Open Letter to Hobbyists" in 1976 decried computer hobbyists' rampant copyright infringement of software, particularly Microsoft's Altair BASIC interpreter, and reminded his audience that their theft from programmers hindered his ability to produce quality software.[9]

text: According to Brewster Kahle the legal characteristic of software changed also due to the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976.[10]

text: Starting in February 1983 IBM adopted an "object-code-only" model for a growing list of their software and stopped shipping source code.[11][12]

text: In 1983, binary software became also copyrightable in the United States by the Apple vs. Franklin law decision,[13] before that only source code was copyrightable.[14] Additionally, the growing availability of millions of computers based on the same microprocessor architecture created for the first time an unfragmented and big enough market for binary distributed software.[14]

text: Legal basis[edit]

text: Most software is covered by copyright which, along with contract law, patents, and trade secrets, provides legal basis for its owner to establish exclusive rights.[15]

text: A software vendor delineates the specific terms of use in an end-user license agreement (EULA). The user may agree to this contract in writing, interactively on screen (clickwrap), or by opening the box containing the software (shrink wrap licensing). License agreements are usually not negotiable.[16] Software patents grant exclusive rights to algorithms, software features, or other patentable subject matter, with coverage varying by jurisdiction. Vendors sometimes grant patent rights to the user in the license agreement.[17] The source code for a piece of software is routinely handled as a trade secret.[18] Occasionally, software is made available with fewer restrictions on licensing or source-code access; such software is known as "free" or "open-source."[19]

text: Limitations[edit]

text: Because license agreements do not override applicable copyright law or contract law, provisions in conflict with applicable law are not enforceable.[20] Some software is specifically licensed and not sold, in order to avoid limitations of copyright such as the first-sale doctrine.[21]

text: Exclusive rights[edit]

text: The owner of proprietary software exercises certain exclusive rights over the software. The owner can restrict use, inspection of source code, modification of source code, and redistribution.

text: Use of the software[edit]

text: Vendors typically limit the number of computers on which software can be used, and prohibit the user from installing the software on extra computers.[citation needed] Restricted use is sometimes enforced through a technical measure, such as product activation, a product key or serial number, a hardware key, or copy protection.

text: Vendors may also distribute versions that remove particular features, or versions which allow only certain fields of endeavor, such as non-commercial, educational, or non-profit use.

text: Use restrictions vary by license:

text:
Windows Vista Starter is restricted to running a maximum of three concurrent applications.
The retail edition of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 is limited to non-commercial use on up to three devices in one household.
Windows XP can be installed on one computer, and limits the number of network file sharing connections to 10.[22] The Home Edition disables features present in Windows XP Professional.
Traditionally, Adobe licenses are limited to one user, but allow the user to install a second copy on a home computer or laptop.[23] This is no longer true with the switching to Creative Cloud.
iWork '09, Apple's productivity suite, is available in a five-user family pack, for use on up to five computers in a household.[24]

tag: ul

text: Inspection and modification of source code[edit]

text: Vendors typically distribute proprietary software in compiled form, usually the machine language understood by the computer's central processing unit. They typically retain the source code, or human-readable version of the software, written in a higher level programming language.[25] This scheme is often referred to as closed source.[26]

text: While most proprietary software is distributed without the source code, some vendors distribute the source code or otherwise make it available to customers. For example, users who have purchased a license for the Internet forum software vBulletin can modify the source for their own site but cannot redistribute it. This is true for many web applications, which must be in source code form when being run by a web server. The source code is covered by a non-disclosure agreement or a license that allows, for example, study and modification, but not redistribution.[citation needed] The text-based email client Pine and certain implementations of Secure Shell are distributed with proprietary licenses that make the source code available.[citation needed]

text: Some governments fear that proprietary software may include defects or malicious features which would compromise sensitive information. In 2003 Microsoft established a Government Security Program (GSP) to allow governments to view source code and Microsoft security documentation, of which the Chinese government was an early participant.[27][28] The program is part of Microsoft's broader Shared Source Initiative which provides source code access for some products. The Reference Source License (Ms-RSL) and Limited Public License (Ms-LPL) are proprietary software licenses where the source code is made available.

text: Governments have also been accused of adding such malware to software themselves. According to documents released by Edward Snowden, the NSA has used covert partnerships with software companies to make commercial encryption software exploitable to eavesdropping, or to insert backdoors.[29][30]

text: Software vendors sometimes use obfuscated code to impede users who would reverse engineer the software.[citation needed] This is particularly common with certain programming languages.[citation needed] For example, the bytecode for programs written in Java can be easily decompiled to somewhat usable code,[citation needed] and the source code for programs written in scripting languages such as PHP or JavaScript is available at run time.[31]

text: Redistribution[edit]

text: Proprietary software vendors can prohibit users from sharing the software with others. Another unique license is required for another party to use the software.

text: In the case of proprietary software with source code available, the vendor may also prohibit customers from distributing their modifications to the source code.

text: Shareware is closed-source software whose owner encourages redistribution at no cost, but which the user sometimes must pay to use after a trial period. The fee usually allows use by a single user or computer. In some cases, software features are restricted during or after the trial period, a practice sometimes called crippleware.

text: Interoperability with software and hardware[edit]

text: Proprietary file formats and protocols[edit]

text: Proprietary software often[citation needed] stores some of its data in file formats which are incompatible with other software, and may also communicate using protocols which are incompatible. Such formats and protocols may be restricted as trade secrets or subject to patents.[citation needed]

text: Proprietary APIs[edit]

text: A proprietary application programming interface (API) is a software library interface "specific to one device or, more likely to a number of devices within a particular manufacturer's product range."[32] The motivation for using a proprietary API can be vendor lock-in or because standard APIs do not support the device's functionality.[32]

text: The European Commission, in its March 24, 2004 decision on Microsoft's business practices,[33] quotes, in paragraph 463, Microsoft general manager for C++ development Aaron Contorer as stating in a February 21, 1997 internal Microsoft memo drafted for Bill Gates:

text: Early versions of the iPhone SDK were covered by a non-disclosure agreement. The agreement forbade independent developers from discussing the content of the interfaces. Apple discontinued the NDA in October 2008.[34]

text: Vendor lock-in[edit]

text: A dependency on the future versions and upgrades for a proprietary software package can create vendor lock-in, entrenching a monopoly position.[35]

text: Software limited to certain hardware configurations[edit]

text: Proprietary software may also have licensing terms that limit the usage of that software to a specific set of hardware. Apple has such a licensing model for Mac OS X, an operating system which is limited to Apple hardware, both by licensing and various design decisions. This licensing model has been affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals.[36]

text: Abandonment by owners[edit]

text: Proprietary software which is no longer marketed, supported or sold by its owner is called abandonware, the digital form of orphaned works. If the proprietor of a software package should cease to exist, or decide to cease or limit production or support for a proprietary software package, recipients and users of the package may have no recourse if problems are found with the software. Proprietors can fail to improve and support software because of business problems.[37] Support for older or existing versions of a software package may be ended to force users to upgrade and pay for newer versions[38] (planned obsolescence). Sometimes another vendor or a software's community themselves can provide support for the software, or the users can migrate to either competing systems with longer support life cycles or to FOSS-based systems.[39]

text: Some closed-source software is released by their owner at end-of-life as open-source or source available software, often to prevent the software from becoming unsupported and unavailable abandonware.[40][41][42] 3D Realms and id Software are famous for the practice of releasing closed source software into the open source.[further explanation needed] Some of those kinds are free-of-charge downloads (freeware), some are still commercially sold (e.g. Arx Fatalis).[further explanation needed] More examples of formerly closed-source software in the List of commercial software with available source code and List of commercial video games with available source code.

text: Formerly open-source software[edit]

text: Some formerly open-source software was made proprietary later. Sometimes for commercialization reasons, sometimes as security or anti-cheat measurement (Security through obscurity). A famous example of such is the Doom source port ZDaemon which was prone to aimbot cheaters.[43]

text: Pricing and economics[edit]

text: Proprietary software is not synonymous with commercial software,[44][45] although the two terms are sometimes used synonymously in articles about free software.[46][47] Proprietary software can be distributed at no cost or for a fee, and free software can be distributed at no cost or for a fee.[48] The difference is that whether or not proprietary software can be distributed, and what the fee would be, is at the proprietor's discretion. With free software, anyone who has a copy can decide whether, and how much, to charge for a copy or related services.[49]

text: Proprietary software that comes for no cost is called freeware.

text: Proponents of commercial proprietary software argue that requiring users to pay for software as a product increases funding or time available for the research and development of software. For example, Microsoft says that per-copy fees maximise the profitability of software development.[50]

text: Proprietary software generally creates greater commercial activity over free software, especially in regard to market revenues.[51]

text: Examples[edit]

text: Examples of proprietary software include Microsoft Windows, Adobe Flash Player, PS3 OS, iTunes, Adobe Photoshop, Google Earth, macOS (formerly Mac OS X and OS X), Skype, WinRAR, Oracle's version of Java and some versions of Unix.

text: Software distributions considered as proprietary may in fact incorporate a "mixed source" model including both free and non-free software in the same distribution.[52] Most if not all so-called proprietary UNIX distributions are mixed source software, bundling open-source components like BIND, Sendmail, X Window System, DHCP, and others along with a purely proprietary kernel and system utilities.[53][54]

text: Some free software packages are also simultaneously available under proprietary terms. Examples include MySQL, Sendmail and ssh. The original copyright holders for a work of free software, even copyleft free software, can use dual-licensing to allow themselves or others to redistribute proprietary versions. Non-copyleft free software (i.e. software distributed under a permissive free software license or released to the public domain) allows anyone to make proprietary redistributions.[55][56] Free software that depends on proprietary software is considered "trapped" by the Free Software Foundation. This includes software written only for Microsoft Windows,[57] or software that could only run on Java, before it became free software.[58]

text: In India, one and a half million laptops were pre-loaded with screen savers of political minister Mulayam Singh Yadav. The author of software developed for these laptops included a malicious feature that would "crash" the device if the laptop's owner attempted to change, remove, or modify this feature.[59]


document_title: Social Darwinism

question_text: who came up with the theory of social darwinism

text: Social Darwinism

text: Origin of the term[edit]

text: The term Darwinism was coined by Thomas Henry Huxley in his March 1861 review of On the Origin of Species,[6] and by the 1870s it was used to describe a range of concepts of evolution or development, without any specific commitment to Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection.[7]

text: The first use of the phrase "social Darwinism" was in Joseph Fisher's 1877 article on The History of Landholding in Ireland which was published in the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society.[8] Fisher was commenting on how a system for borrowing livestock which had been called "tenure" had led to the false impression that the early Irish had already evolved or developed land tenure;[9]

text: These arrangements did not in any way affect that which we understand by the word " tenure", that is, a man's farm, but they related solely to cattle, which we consider a chattel. It has appeared necessary to devote some space to this subject, inasmuch as that usually acute writer Sir Henry Maine has accepted the word " tenure " in its modern interpretation, and has built up a theory under which the Irish chief " developed " into a feudal baron. I can find nothing in the Brehon laws to warrant this theory of social Darwinism, and believe further study will show that the Cain Saerrath and the Cain Aigillue relate solely to what we now call chattels, and did not in any way affect what we now call the freehold, the possession of the land.

text: Despite the fact that Social Darwinism bears Charles Darwin's name, it is also linked today with others, notably Herbert Spencer, Thomas Malthus, and Francis Galton, the founder of eugenics. In fact, Spencer was not described as a social Darwinist until the 1930s, long after his death.[10] The social Darwinism term first appeared in Europe in 1880, the journalist Emilie Gautier had coined the term with reference to a health conference in Berlin 1877.[8] Around 1900 it was used by sociologists, some being opposed to the concept.[11] The term was popularized in the United States in 1944 by the American historian Richard Hofstadter who used it in the ideological war effort against fascism to denote a reactionary creed which promoted competitive strife, racism and chauvinism. Hofstadter later also recognized (what he saw as) the influence of Darwinist and other evolutionary ideas upon those with collectivist views, enough to devise a term for the phenomenon, "Darwinist collectivism".[12] Before Hofstadter's work the use of the term "social Darwinism" in English academic journals was quite rare.[13] In fact,

text: ... there is considerable evidence that the entire concept of "social Darwinism" as we know it today was virtually invented by Richard Hofstadter. Eric Foner, in an introduction to a then-new edition of Hofstadter's book published in the early 1990s, declines to go quite that far. "Hofstadter did not invent the term Social Darwinism", Foner writes, "which originated in Europe in the 1860s and crossed the Atlantic in the early twentieth century. But before he wrote, it was used only on rare occasions; he made it a standard shorthand for a complex of late-nineteenth-century ideas, a familiar part of the lexicon of social thought."

text: Usage[edit]

text: Social Darwinism has many definitions, and some of them are incompatible with each other. As such, social Darwinism has been criticized for being an inconsistent philosophy, which does not lead to any clear political conclusions. For example, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics states:

text: Part of the difficulty in establishing sensible and consistent usage is that commitment to the biology of natural selection and to 'survival of the fittest' entailed nothing uniform either for sociological method or for political doctrine. A 'social Darwinist' could just as well be a defender of laissez-faire as a defender of state socialism, just as much an imperialist as a domestic eugenist.[15]

text: The term "Social Darwinism" has rarely been used by advocates of the supposed ideologies or ideas; instead it has almost always been used pejoratively by its opponents.[1] The term draws upon the common meaning of Darwinism, which includes a range of evolutionary views, but in the late 19th century was applied more specifically to natural selection as first advanced by Charles Darwin to explain speciation in populations of organisms. The process includes competition between individuals for limited resources, popularly but inaccurately described by the phrase "survival of the fittest", a term coined by sociologist Herbert Spencer.

text:
Creationists have often maintained that Social Darwinism—leading to policies designed to reward the most competitive—is a logical consequence of  "Darwinism" (the theory of natural selection in biology).[16]
Biologists and historians have stated that this is a fallacy of appeal to nature and should not be taken to imply that this phenomenon ought to be used as a moral guide in human society.[17] While there are historical links between the popularization of Darwin's theory and forms of social Darwinism, social Darwinism is not a necessary consequence of the principles of biological evolution.

text: While the term has been applied to the claim that Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection can be used to understand the social endurance of a nation or country, Social Darwinism commonly refers to ideas that predate Darwin's publication of On the Origin of Species. Others whose ideas are given the label include the 18th century clergyman Thomas Malthus, and Darwin's cousin Francis Galton who founded eugenics towards the end of the 19th century.

text: The expansion of the British Empire fitted in with the broader notion of social Darwinism used from the 1870s onwards to account for the remarkable and universal phenomenon of "the Anglo-Saxon overflowing his boundaries", as phrased by the late-Victorian sociologist Benjamin Kidd in Social Evolution, published in 1894.[18] The concept also proved useful to justify what was seen by some as the inevitable extermination of "the weaker races who disappear before the stronger" not so much "through the effects of … our vices upon them" as "what may be called the virtues of our civilisation."

text: Proponents[edit]

text: Herbert Spencer's ideas, like those of evolutionary progressivism, stemmed from his reading of Thomas Malthus, and his later theories were influenced by those of Darwin. However, Spencer's major work, Progress: Its Law and Cause (1857), was released two years before the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, and First Principles was printed in 1860.

text: In The Social Organism (1860), Spencer compares society to a living organism and argues that, just as biological organisms evolve through natural selection, society evolves and increases in complexity through analogous processes.[19]

text: In many ways, Spencer's theory of cosmic evolution has much more in common with the works of Lamarck and Auguste Comte's positivism than with Darwin's.

text: Jeff Riggenbach argues that Spencer's view was that culture and education made a sort of Lamarckism possible[14] and notes that Herbert Spencer was a proponent of private charity.[14] However, the legacy of his social Darwinism was less than charitable.[20]

text: Spencer's work also served to renew interest in the work of Malthus. While Malthus's work does not itself qualify as social Darwinism, his 1798 work An Essay on the Principle of Population, was incredibly popular and widely read by social Darwinists. In that book, for example, the author argued that as an increasing population would normally outgrow its food supply, this would result in the starvation of the weakest and a Malthusian catastrophe.

text: According to Michael Ruse, Darwin read Malthus' famous Essay on a Principle of Population in 1838, four years after Malthus' death. Malthus himself anticipated the social Darwinists in suggesting that charity could exacerbate social problems.

text: Another of these social interpretations of Darwin's biological views, later known as eugenics, was put forth by Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton, in 1865 and 1869. Galton argued that just as physical traits were clearly inherited among generations of people, the same could be said for mental qualities (genius and talent). Galton argued that social morals needed to change so that heredity was a conscious decision in order to avoid both the over-breeding by less fit members of society and the under-breeding of the more fit ones.

text: In Galton's view, social institutions such as welfare and insane asylums were allowing inferior humans to survive and reproduce at levels faster than the more "superior" humans in respectable society, and if corrections were not soon taken, society would be awash with "inferiors". Darwin read his cousin's work with interest, and devoted sections of Descent of Man to discussion of Galton's theories. Neither Galton nor Darwin, though, advocated any eugenic policies restricting reproduction, due to their Whiggish distrust of government.[21]

text: Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy addressed the question of artificial selection, yet Nietzsche's principles did not concur with Darwinian theories of natural selection. Nietzsche's point of view on sickness and health, in particular, opposed him to the concept of biological adaptation as forged by Spencer's "fitness". Nietzsche criticized Haeckel, Spencer, and Darwin, sometimes under the same banner by maintaining that in specific cases, sickness was necessary and even helpful.[22] Thus, he wrote:

text:
Wherever progress is to ensue, deviating natures are of greatest importance. Every progress of the whole must be preceded by a partial weakening. The strongest natures retain the type, the weaker ones help to advance it.
Something similar also happens in the individual. There is rarely a degeneration, a truncation, or even a vice or any physical or moral loss without an advantage somewhere else. In a warlike and restless clan, for example, the sicklier man may have occasion to be alone, and may therefore become quieter and wiser; the one-eyed man will have one eye the stronger; the blind man will see deeper inwardly, and certainly hear better. To this extent, the famous theory of the survival of the fittest does not seem to me to be the only viewpoint from which to explain the progress of strengthening of a man or of a race.[23]

text: Ernst Haeckel's recapitulation theory was not Darwinism, but rather attempted to combine the ideas of Goethe, Lamarck and Darwin. It was adopted by emerging social sciences to support the concept that non-European societies were "primitive" in an early stage of development towards the European ideal, but since then it has been heavily refuted on many fronts[24] Haeckel's works led to the formation of the Monist League in 1904 with many prominent citizens among its members, including the Nobel Prize winner Wilhelm Ostwald.

text: The simpler aspects of social Darwinism followed the earlier Malthusian ideas that humans, especially males, require competition in their lives in order to survive in the future. Further, the poor should have to provide for themselves and not be given any aid. However, amidst this climate, most social Darwinists of the early twentieth century actually supported better working conditions and salaries. Such measures would grant the poor a better chance to provide for themselves yet still distinguish those who are capable of succeeding from those who are poor out of laziness, weakness, or inferiority.

text: Hypotheses relating social change and evolution[edit]

text: "Social Darwinism" was first described by Oscar Schmidt of the University of Strasbourg, reporting at a scientific and medical conference held in Munich in 1877. He noted how socialists, although opponents of Darwin's theory, used it to add force to their political arguments. Schmidt's essay first appeared in English in Popular Science in March 1879.[25] There followed an anarchist tract published in Paris in 1880 entitled "Le darwinisme social" by Émile Gautier. However, the use of the term was very rare—at least in the English-speaking world (Hodgson, 2004)[26]—until the American historian Richard Hofstadter published his influential Social Darwinism in American Thought (1944) during World War II.

text: Hypotheses of social evolution and cultural evolution were common in Europe. The Enlightenment thinkers who preceded Darwin, such as Hegel, often argued that societies progressed through stages of increasing development. Earlier thinkers also emphasized conflict as an inherent feature of social life. Thomas Hobbes's 17th century portrayal of the state of nature seems analogous to the competition for natural resources described by Darwin. Social Darwinism is distinct from other theories of social change because of the way it draws Darwin's distinctive ideas from the field of biology into social studies.

text: Darwin, unlike Hobbes, believed that this struggle for natural resources allowed individuals with certain physical and mental traits to succeed more frequently than others, and that these traits accumulated in the population over time, which under certain conditions could lead to the descendants being so different that they would be defined as a new species.

text: However, Darwin felt that "social instincts" such as "sympathy" and "moral sentiments" also evolved through natural selection, and that these resulted in the strengthening of societies in which they occurred, so much so that he wrote about it in Descent of Man:

text: The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable—namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, the parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well, or nearly as well developed, as in man. For, firstly, the social instincts lead an animal to take pleasure in the society of its fellows, to feel a certain amount of sympathy with them, and to perform various services for them.[27]

text: Regional distribution[edit]

text: United States[edit]

text: Spencer proved to be a popular figure in the 1880s primarily because his application of evolution to areas of human endeavor promoted an optimistic view of the future as inevitably becoming better. In the United States, writers and thinkers of the gilded age such as Edward L. Youmans, William Graham Sumner, John Fiske, John W. Burgess, and others developed theories of social evolution as a result of their exposure to the works of Darwin and Spencer.

text: In 1883, Sumner published a highly influential pamphlet entitled "What Social Classes Owe to Each Other", in which he insisted that the social classes owe each other nothing, synthesizing Darwin's findings with free enterprise Capitalism for his justification.[citation needed] According to Sumner, those who feel an obligation to provide assistance to those unequipped or under-equipped to compete for resources, will lead to a country in which the weak and inferior are encouraged to breed more like them, eventually dragging the country down. Sumner also believed that the best equipped to win the struggle for existence was the American businessman, and concluded that taxes and regulations serve as dangers to his survival. This pamphlet makes no mention of Darwinism, and only refers to Darwin in a statement on the meaning of liberty, that "There never has been any man, from the primitive barbarian up to a Humboldt or a Darwin, who could do as he had a mind to."[28]

text: Sumner never fully embraced Darwinian ideas, and some contemporary historians do not believe that Sumner ever actually believed in social Darwinism.[29] The great majority of American businessmen rejected the anti-philanthropic implications of the theory. Instead they gave millions to build schools, colleges, hospitals, art institutes, parks and many other institutions. Andrew Carnegie, who admired Spencer, was the leading philanthropist in the world (1890–1920), and a major leader against imperialism and warfare.[30]

text: H. G. Wells was heavily influenced by Darwinist thoughts, and novelist Jack London wrote stories of survival that incorporated his views on social Darwinism.[31] Film director Stanley Kubrick has been described as having held social Darwinist opinions.[32]

text: Japan[edit]

text: Social Darwinism has influenced political, public health and social movements in Japan since the late 19th and early 20th century. Social Darwinism was originally brought to Japan through the works of Francis Galton and Ernst Haeckel as well as United States, British and French Lamarkian eugenic written studies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[33] Eugenism as a science was hotly debated at the beginning of the 20th century, in Jinsei-Der Mensch, the first eugenics journal in the empire. As Japan sought to close ranks with the west, this practice was adopted wholesale along with colonialism and its justifications.

text: China[edit]

text: Social Darwinism was formally introduced to China through the translation by Yan Fu of Huxley's Evolution and Ethics, in the course of an extensive series of translations of influential Western thought.[34] Yan's translation strongly impacted Chinese scholars because he added national elements not found in the original. He understood Spencer's sociology as "not merely analytical and descriptive, but prescriptive as well", and saw Spencer building on Darwin, whom Yan summarized thus:

text:
By the 1920s, social Darwinism found expression in the promotion of eugenics by the Chinese sociologist Pan Guangdan.
When Chiang Kai-shek started the New Life movement in 1934, he

text: Germany[edit]

text: Social evolution theories in Germany gained large popularity in the 1860s and had a strong antiestablishment connotation first. Social Darwinism allowed people to counter the connection of Thron und Altar, the intertwined establishment of clergy and nobility, and provided as well the idea of progressive change and evolution of society as a whole. Ernst Haeckel propagated both Darwinism as a part of natural history and as a suitable base for a modern Weltanschauung, a world view based on scientific reasoning in his Monist League. Friedrich von Hellwald had a strong role in popularizing it in Austria. Darwin's work served as a catalyst to popularize evolutionary thinking.[37] Darwin himself called Haeckel's connection between Socialism and Evolution through Natural Selection a foolish idea prevailing in Germany.

text: A sort of aristocratic turn, the use of the struggle for life as base of social darwinism sensu stricto came up after 1900 with Alexander Tilles 1895 work Entwicklungsethik (ethics of evolution) which asked to move from Darwin till Nietzsche. Further interpretations moved to ideologies propagating a racist and hierarchical society and provided ground for the later radical versions of social Darwinism.[37]

text: Criticism[edit]

text: Social Darwinism is often cited as an ideological justification for much of 18th/19th century European enslavement and colonization of Third World countries;[38] it has often even found its way into the intellectual foundations of public education in neo-colonized countries.[39]