Cult Of True Womanhood Essay

According to the Cult of Domesticity, women were supposed to be perfect role model in her house. Women were put in the middle of the domestic world and were expected to be loving and caring mother. They were also expected to be religious and show everyone close to them the religious

Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but since technological and medical advancements in the area of hormones and brain functions it was just called shell shock syndrome. The treatment plan was known for two portions seriously: the rest and the seclusion. Those who were prescribed the rest cure were confined to bed for weeks to months at a time and completely cut off from family members and friends. However, this treatment of confining patients to their beds and cutting them off from family members was mainly used for women. On the other hand, men who were prescribed the rest cure were given two options: “to rest or to travel to remote areas and undertake rugged, outdoors life”. Dr. Mitchell was influenced by the ideas of the 19th Century also known as “The Cult of True Womanhood”. According to the “Cult of True Womanhood” in order to be a “true

The next requirement for being a “true woman” was submissiveness. According to society men were superior to women by “God’s appointment.” If they acted otherwise they “tampered with the order of the Universe” (Welter 105). A “true woman” would not question this idea because she already understands her place. Grace Greenwood explained to the women of the Nineteenth Century, “True feminine genius is ever timid, doubtful, and clingingly dependant; a perpetual childhood.” Even in the case of an abusive husband, women were sometimes told to stay quiet

Back then women were not allowed to speak as often as they would have liked to. They were expected to be caregivers, have and raise children, and do household duties such as cleaning and cooking for the family. Basically that was a women's typical role, men were constantly seen as being way above women, so therefore they would always be the ones who commanded or had the final word in what would be done. Women were seen as passive and weak, and not as able to accomplish physically or mentally all that men

The cult of domesticity is a term describing what the role of women was during the 1800’s. Women defined freedom as being free from labor. They found that freedom by fulfilling their duties at home. Their role was to be a wife a mother and to provide love and friendship. Not working outside the home was regarded as a badge of respectability.

The first steps of industrialization shifted work away from the home. The workplace and the home became geographically and psychically separate. These changes transformed Americans’ notions of what constituted work, and therefore shifted what it meant to be an American woman and an American man. The term “separate spheres” mean that woman’s sphere was the world of privacy, family, and morality while man’s sphere was the public world, economy, political and social. Women exerted their influence through the home, a space that nurtured husbands and children.

Thesis: A “true women” in the 19th Century was one who was domestic, religious, and chaste. These were virtues established by men but enforced and taught by other women. Women were also told that they were inferior to men and they should accept it and be grateful that someone just loved them.

Confined to the home, many women spent their days striving to be seen as a suitable mother and wife. Their duties consisted of cleaning the house and raising their children as they waited for their husband to arrive home from work. The idea of the Cult of Domesticity was encouraged in many

The Home became the refuge of social fundamentalism and family, as the family developed from an economic cog, to a private piece of domesticity. “The Suburb Reader” by Becky M. Nicolaides, and Andrew Wiese describes the role of women in this divide, “Men came to inhabit the world of work, while women became managers of the

Women were expected to basically be merely an object, even a trophy for their husbands. They were expected to stay home and clean, as well as cook. With all these expected tasks, women hardly had any time to branch out and figure out what they wanted to do with their life. They had no time for leisure activities of any kind because, of course, their activities involved taking care of the house. Women were also seen as the weaker sex, always submissive to their dominant male counterpart. Although the women were submissive, they were held to a higher moral standard. Adultery was twice shamed upon if committed by a woman rather than a man. (Hughes par.3) A woman could be stoned to death, but people would turn their cheek for a man while the woman still was expected to stay beside the man.

housewife, to stay at home. This is my explanation of the essay, "The Cult of

Many followed the “Cult of Domesticity” without realizing it. With the beliefs followed by this, women were to be the central role in the family. They were to follow God-given roles. To be a wife and mother, caretaker of the household, and was to guard the moral purity of her family. “Womanly virtue resided in piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity.”

The importance of female roles were not respected , women were to act like ladies and to behave like every other women did. An example would be

This idea of domesticity carried on and limited the women's experiences in life, for example men had a public life where they ventured off daily to compete and perform tens jobs away from the home while the woman I don't just want to go to nurture the children, tend to the home and make sure everything was taken care of. In fact in that time of the 19th century writers, preachers and reformers were advocates that the woman's place was to "be in the home." With all this being said, a large amount of women of color and working-class women also performed wage earning labor so they did have jobs outside of the home. However many of these women were unmarried who worked outside of their home for for wages, in module for the The statistic was fewer than 20% of all women worked outside of the home and those who did only 2% of them were married. When both World War I into happened many men left, to fight for the country which left lots of vacant jobs that need to be filled which is where women stepped up to the plate and became breadwinners and still manage to tend to the household all the men were off at war. After then wars is kind of

Defining what a female was supposed to be and do was an act of Renaissance culture. For most of Renaissance society, women represented the following virtues which, importantly, having their meaning in relation to the male; obedience, silence, sexual chastity, piety, humility, constancy, and patience. The most important being sexual chastity and piety.