History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c37.s5.4

v3.c37.s5.4

In fact, in Mughal times the first lady of the realm was not the Empress Consort (except in the cases of Nur Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal), but the royal mother or the royal sister. Indian etiquette requires that not the wife but the widowed mother or some other elderly lady should be the mistress of the household. Natural bashfulness would keep an empress from ordering about the general establishment of the harem, regulating the marriages and other ceremonies in the family, or presiding over the female society of the capital. But the death of her husband would at once raise her to the dignity of a widow and the influence of a Queen-mother, and remove from her even the possibility of any younger and fairer rival supplanting her in her husband's favour and hurling her from her seat of honour and influence. Social decorum prevented an emperor from placing his wife above his mother, his elder sister, or his paternal aunt. Thus it was that dowagers and old maids ruled the ladies' world in the Delhi palace.