Why do we celebrate Mother's Day?

It is Mother’s Day today. The occasion is celebrated throughout the world by those who love their mothers. They buy gifts, send greetings and spend the day with their beloved mothers to honour them.

Though the origin of Mother’s Day is somewhat obscure, most of historians say that the practice must have been influenced by the Mother Goddess cult in Asia Minor as long way back as in 6000 BC. Later on the Greeks imported the cult which was subsequently copied by the Romans as well. This practice gradually crept into Christianity too in the form of Mothering Sunday, an occasion on which Christians belonging to certain denominations honour Virgin Mary and their mother church.

In modern times, Mother’s Day is celebrated by the majority of people on the second Sunday in May. Anna Jarvis, an American lady is credited with the establishment of Mother’s Day as a recognized holiday in 1914 though she embarked on her campaign in the year 1907 following her mother’s death a couple of years ago.

Soon, like anything of the American origin, the celebration spread across the world and in a few years’ time Mother’s Day started to get commercially exploited – something Anna Jarvis never expected! Companies started wooing people with expensive greeting cards and gifts, jewelry industry and hotels reported higher revenues on or before the Mother’s Day. Frustrated, Jarvis along with her sister spent all her inherited and acquired wealth to fight against the commercialization of Mother’s Day. Both the sisters died in poverty a few years later.

It is also interesting to note that Anna Jarvis neither married nor had any children!