Will Jill Biden like being called 'first lady' after calling SLOTUS 'archaic'? Here's how the titles were coined
While President-elect Joe Biden is days away from being officially appointed the 46th president of the United States, it is yet to be seen whether his wife Jill Biden is referred to as the first lady by the mainstream media and the people at large because she wasn't particularly thrilled being called the "second lady" when her husband served at the White House for eight years under the Obama presidency.
In an interview dating back to 2015, Jill appeared on 'Late Night with Seth Meyers' and made her feelings about being called the "second lady" clear. "You do not love the title of the second lady..." said Meyers to which Jill answered, "No." The comedian agreed with her, saying, "And I completely understand, it sounds like the title of a Jane Austen novel."
"I know, it's like so archaic. When did they come with that?" Jill said during the interview with a look of disgust on her face. She added, "I like 'Captain of the Vice Squad'." When Meyers joked saying it sounded like the famous Taylor Swift squad, Jill laughed along, saying, "Oh yes, I am like there with Taylor Swift."
So where did terms like the first lady and the second come from? First lady is an unofficial title used for the wife of a non-monarchical head of state or chief executive, which in the US is the president. Subsequently, Second Spouse of the United States (SSOTUS), or Second Lady of the United States (SLOTUS), is the informal title held by the spouse of the vice president of the country.
Although these terms have traditionally come into usage, it would be interesting to note that in the early days of the United States, there was no generally accepted title for the wife of the president. In fact, many expressed their own preference for how they were addressed, including the use of such titles as Lady. As a result, it would not be far-fetched for Jill to pick her own term of reference.
One of the earliest uses of the term "first lady" was applied to Martha Washington in a profile by Mrs CH Sigourney in 1838. But the term "first lady" started being commonly used only in the late 1800s. Harriet Lane, the niece of bachelor President James Buchanan, was the first woman to be called first lady. The phrase appeared in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Monthly in 1860, when he wrote, "The Lady of the White House, and by courtesy, the First Lady of the Land."
The title first gained nationwide recognition in 1877, when Mary C Ames wrote an article in the New York City newspaper The Independent describing the inauguration of President Rutherford B Hayes where the term was used to describe his wife Lucy Webb Hayes.
The honorific "Second Lady," on the other hand, was apparently first used by Jennie Tuttle Hobart (wife of Garret Hobart, vice president 1897–1899) to refer to herself. During the 1990s the title was abandoned and instead the term "wife of the vice president" was favored. The term came back into use during the presidency of Barack Obama which seems ironic as Jill later said that she did not take a liking to the term. The usage of the title was continued by the administration of President Donald Trump, although six months after his inauguration, Trump said that he had never heard the term before becoming the POTUS.