The Role Of First Ladies

On whatever continent we look, the heads of states' spouses still share several characteristics. Most notably this is the largely unacknowledged invisible influence on their partners and thus on politics. But also their - for the most part - unrecognized social work in form of charitable events and alike is a shared feature. However numerous the similarities between different states' first ladies might be, considerable regional distinctions persist, as this paper demonstrates in the cases of the United States and Europe.The objective of the paper is to get the reader acquainted with several principles of first ladyship such as the evolvement of the role, duties that might be imposed by the public and duties first ladies decide to assume as well as public interest and influences first ladies can wield. The questions to be answered are how the role of First Ladies can be defined and, more specifically, what extent of influence they are able to exercise. A subpart of the paper will deal with European first ladies and the comparison to US American first ladies.Secondary research for this paper was conducted in libraries and via the Internet. Books and journal articles form the most important part of secondary research sources.