Surely you’ve heard of those insults and they’re commonly used towards any mother and mothers only.
"your mother is so fat she <fill in a juvenile exageration>
Other insults about mothers doing sexual acts of some sort to the person who’s instigating the adversity.
So are these insults used towards mothers because if it were towards a father it would be a sign of homosexuality thus exposing a trait considered as a weakness or would it be because women in general are the minority on Earth for the past many centuries?
I’d say it’s because a person’s mother is who they have had the closest relationship with for most of their life. Your mother gave birth to you, raised you, and loved you probably more than any other person. So an insult to your mother is an insult to everything you hold dear on Earth, probably above even your own life.
I don’t think it’s either of those - rather the idea is to offend as strongly as possible by going after one’s most beloved (and the idea far predates the “Your mother is so fat…” jokes - there are examples in Shakespeare, and surely it goes back to the dawn of insults.)
A Sumerian cuneiform tablet has some of the world’s oldest known jokes, and one of them looks like it was a “yo momma” joke! Sadly, some of the text was lost so the joke is incomplete But here is what we do have:
“… of your mother, is by the one who has intercourse with her. Who is it?”
Another consideration of why mother, and not father: depending on the environment and the culture there may be serious doubt as to who one’s father is!
Of course, babies switched soon after birth help to balance this issue to some extent.
I thought that most of the modern American yo’ momma jokes cames from “doing the dozens”, which started with African slaves insulting each other during slave auctions. I could be wrong, this is just what I’ve heard.
Regardless of the origin, I think it started gaining currencin the the 1960s, mostly from the Black community. Possibly related, here’s a question I asked some years ago on “MF.”
The exact era of when all females became a minority? You could try posting that in another thread since it’s a topic all on it’s own.
I know that the ancient Egyptian families had egalitarian system yet when looking at anglo saxons, it was quite the opposite. Even their words had shown sexism and it’s the same words we use to this day.
Then Saul’s anger was kindled against Jonathan, and he said unto him, Thou son of the perverse rebellious woman, do not I know that thou hast chosen the son of Jesse to thine own confusion, and unto the confusion of thy mother’s nakedness?
The Russians got in on the act too - I remember reading a late medieval manuscript that literally (and yes, I do mean literally) said “May a dog fuck your mother if you transgress”. This was probably contemporaneous with, if not slightly before, Shakespeare, if I remember correctly.
I always assumed it was because, no matter how vile a scoundrel you are, and how little regard you have for anything on earth, you still probably love your mother. And therefore are guaranteed to be offended. Just MHO.
Yo mama so dumb she don’t know “the dozens” go back to caveman times.
Seriously, I think this has to be as deeply rooted as the pentatonic scale in the human psyche. Early cultures had matrilineal descent rules. Early civilizations had mother-descent with the mom’s brothers acting as the male caretakers of children. This happened even in patriarchial Rome and was incorporated into Judaism after the destruction of the Second Temple.
The Old Testament, and much of early Christianity, along with early Islam reads like an effort to make “yo momma” jokes less common, but more severe when they hit home.
BTW, there are a few cultures in Tibet and the edges of China that practice matrilineal descent with brothers caring for children. One community in China is the target of sex tourism by the Han majority. The mature women in charge know that their younger brothers and older sons will raise their children right. Alas they are getting so much sex tourism that the men are getting restless.
But here is what we do have: