The Cult of Domesticity Republican Motherhood Interpretation of

The Cult of Domesticity

Republican Motherhood �Interpretation of the idealized role of women in 1760 -1800 �Civic Virtue and a reflection of the role women played during the Revolution �Benefits elite rather than all women

The Status of Women �Legal Status Coverture � Dependent and unequal � Political and legal non-existence �Education was “frivolous” Women not treated as if they possessed logic or reason Could injure the brain, harm health, and make you unfit for marriage �Emerging belief in separate, very distinct, characteristics between men and women

The Cult of Domesticity (Cult of True Womanhood) Private Sphere �Women had “power” and “influence” Public Sphere �Women defer to men

Separate Spheres � Industrialization and urbanization � The home is no longer the focus of work � Unique to the middle class

Gender inequality �Certain behavior expectations for each gender Woman: religiously pious, morally pure, physically delicate, highly emotional and intuitive, submissive to her husband, and above all else devoted to the domestic pursuits of housekeeping and child-rearing Man: strong, coarse, unemotional, intellectual, rational, and skilled and enterprising enough to make a living for himself and his family �Creation of modern gender roles

More effects �Fewer births = focus on “childhood” �Benevolent societies and reform movements �Women’s rights movement

Seneca Falls Convention - 1848 � “a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of men toward woman. ” “He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men - both natives and foreigners. ” “Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides. ” “In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master, the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty. and to administer chastisement. ” “After depriving her of all rights as a married woman, if single, and the owner of property, he has taxed her to support a government which recognizes her only when her property can be made profitable to it. ” � Resolved, That woman is man's equal—was intended to be so by the Creator, and the highest good of the race demands that she should be recognized as such. � Resolved, That the same amount of virtue, delicacy, and refinement of behavior, that is required of woman in the social state, should also be required of man, and the same transgressions should be visited with equal severity on both man and woman.