The Cult Of True Womanhood Summary

Women were expected to do so much but at the same time so little. They had no power to do what they desire because men had all the power to control them. Society had an expectation of how women were supposed to act. For instance, Mary’s father cared for his sons education he wanted them to know how to read, write, and to do sums, as for his daughters he only cared that they knew how to read and sew. That is the basic that women were allowed to learn it was not important for them to know more since all they were going to work for is taking care of children. Here is an example, “…Gender roles within those families the reinforcement of gender ideals such as “helpmeet” and “notable housewife” by religious and civil authorities, and the simple

(Ulrich p. 5) Her research clearly establishes that despite the hierarchal and patriarchal nature of their society, women during this time contributed in essential and complex ways not only to their households and their communities, but the story of women is a central and crucial part of our American history. Ulrich supports her thesis by showing women adeptly performed any job necessary that benefited the family including that of deputy husband; “women played a central part in the communications network” which connected neighborhoods; women controlled sexual behavior; women engaged in and controlled significant trade; women exercised “considerable influence in the churches” and “enlarged the meaning of their own lives” as Christians; and women demonstrated heroic qualities “in the face of hardships of

After marriage, the husband was considered lord and master of the family. But not all the women were meek and submissive. By the 1700's, the woman’s status had rapidly improved in colonial America. A wife and child made as much as a man did. Although women did not have equality with men, their status greatly improved from their status in Europe. A woman’s station in life was determined by the position of their husbands or fathers. The women of the poorest families, compiled to work in the fields, stood at the bottom of the social ladder. One of the surest signs of the accomplishments a family had made, was the exemption of their women from the fields. Before 1740, girls were trained in household crafts and the practical arts of family management. But afterwards they began to study subjects that required reading and studying such subjects as grammer and arithmetic. The women of the upper classes occupied themselves mainly with planning the work of the home and with supervising the domestic servants. Along with these tasks the women also baked, nursed, and sewed. But there were many social restrictions placed on the women of that time. One such restriction was that a wife, in absence of her husband, was not allowed to lodge men even if they were close relatives. For

Before the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, women were meant to remain in the household and do all the work there. They were supposed to take raise the children, maintain the house, support the husband, and be overall dependent on men. Women did not often work outside of their homes nor did they have any real independence to say or do whatever they pleased. For the most part, women were very dependent on men for most things in their lives. Women were meant to be meek,

After 1815, the female was viewed in a more respectful persona in society. Women’s rights were beginning to grow. They were helping more in religious growth, and helping in the abolition of slavery. “On every principle of natural justice, as well as by the nature of our institutions, she is as fully entitled as man to vote and to be eligible to office.” (Document F). Many females were involved in the growth of religion, including the Second Great Awakening. With the females being the ones who take the children to church, they were prone to having a deeper belief for their religion. And with that, they would try to inspire religious growth. The Second Great Awakening spurred reform, prison, church, temperance, abolition, women’s rights, and Christianizing Indians. With women fighting for what they believe in, the women were finding themselves to have a new found respect; from both themselves and men. Document E illustrates this by females walking down a street with a sense of confidence.

In nineteenth century America, women were not given the same rights and freedoms as their spouses/ men. Women were expected to be submissive to their husbands though they did have some authority within the private sphere. The private sphere is comprised of the home and family. During this time, women were responsible for being a mother and wife; however, with the Second Great Awakening, women were being to have more freedoms and responsibilities. New roles allowed for mothers to teach their children religion in their homes and women took up an interest in attending religious revival meetings (Hewitt, Lawson 357). A fair number of women were enticed with the religious revival movement because it allowed women to leave their private sphere and participate in the public sphere. Women were given an opportunity to conjugate with each other and practice their beliefs that allowed them to slowly partake in the reform (Hewitt, Lawson 352). The religious revival meetings attracted thousands to attend, most of who were women, and “pray” in a group (Frances Trollope – Description of a Revival Meeting, 1832). In Document 11.7, Frances Trollope, English author,

Masculinity didn’t do a good job of attaining the hoped-for standards, as they didn’t have other equally profound consequences for American middle-class culture at this time. It justified the exclusion of women from the world as acceptable to both women and men at this time, and it cultivated strong bonds around women as well. They in fact shared the biological experiences central to their definition as women and spoke the same language of virtue and piety, which essentially means that they instilled a awareness of a set of common goals for them and experiences present for them, which had values specific to women, and distinct from those of men. The key to this was the extensive networks of female friends that were present during this time period for these women. Since women were supposedly better than men during this time, it was feasible and easy to believe that women were obliged and privileged to work together and help other women, who were fallen, and poor, who were having some sort of trouble during this time period as a result of the society that they were present in during this time period. Southern white women during this time were aware of the ideology of domesticity during this time, and they would try to implement it and its teachings for their lives, but their expectations were frequently articulated during this time period. There was little industrialization, domestication, urbanization, immigration, and therefore, social dislocation present during

181). Religion was integrated into their life. As the Industrial Age progressed, the strong religious values weakened through generations. “Female education should be preeminently religious” (p.182). The woman was the primary teacher of her child and was expected to teach themselves religion and be able to teach their children as well. “One reason religion was valued was that it did not take a woman away from her “proper sphere, her home.” (p. 181) Women only completed grade school and had many opportunities to read the bible so they were also able to preach family values, help the poor and contribute to stopping slavery. Devotion to religion was expected. Welter explains that a woman’s brain is capable of comprehending religion even though it is not visible. As the Industrial Age progressed, the strong religious values weakened through generations. Submission, another principle, kept women from voicing her opinion when having a discussion with their husbands or telling their husbands to terminate an annoying idiosyncrasy. “Wives were advised to do their best to reform men, but if they couldn’t, to give up gracefully. If any habit of his annoyed me, I spoke of it once or twice calmly, then bore it quietly.”(p. 186) She would reinforce her submissiveness by wearing tight corsets which would limit her breathing and physical mobility and remain uncomfortable. They were expected to be subservient to men as well as homemakers. “In Women of

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

The Cult of True Womanhood was written with a focus on the antebellum period of the nineteenth century. During this time slavery was still an ongoing problem so one can assume that true womanhood didn’t apply to women of color. True Womanhood relied heavily on four points – piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity. Woman should be piety and

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.

In the early nineteenth century, women were expected to be, “‘angels in the house,’ loving, self-sacrificing, and chaste wives, mothers and daughters or they are… ultimately doomed” (King et al. 23). Women of this time were supposed to be domestic creatures and not tap so far into their intellectual abilities (King et al.). The role of women in the nineteenth century is described:

Most of the gender expectations stemmed from the Church and biblical history. There were many anti-feminist feelings due to Eve causing the fall of Man. Women were perceived to be responsible for most of the suffering to man, and

Handbooks were written for either men or women that shared gender codes that were not legal laws, but established gender socializations that were taught at young ages. One handbook stated when a girl is young, “the chief duty of a girl living in the parental house is to practice filial piety toward her mother and father” (McClain, 2002, p. 94). Then once a woman is married, the new wife “must look to her husband as a lord and must serve him….. [and] when the husband issues his instructions the wife must never disobey them” (McClain, 2002, p. 94). In addition to abiding by the orders of her husband, the new wife must honor her father-in-law and mother-in-law more than her own parents and perform any task asked for them. Women were not only demanded who to obey, but they also had limits placed on their feelings. Women were told to “avoid extravagance” and act in a proper demeanor, “courteous, humble and conciliatory; never peevish, intractable, rude and arrogant” (McClain, 2002, p. 94). While women were banned from divorcing their husbands, men could divorce their wives for reasons as simple as disobedience, an inability to bear children, lewd acts, jealousy, leprosy, or “disturb[ance to] the harmony of the household”(McClain, 2002, p. 94).

The morality about sex had a main aim: An ideal of purity based on a chastity code which emphasized the relevance of premarital continence. In order to keep this chastity code, anything related to sex was silenced in an attitude of deliberated ignorance, an attitude of rejection of sex, especially in women, who usually associated sex with a marital duty.