Cult of True Womanhood - Essay Example

How the “Cult of True Womanhood” encourage women in the 19th century to become involved in social reform Introduction The "Cult of True Womanhood" has much prejudiced civilization and the society all over all of the history of America. The placed standards was first established and implemented by all of the European colonies. Later on they were passed through the generations, and they still exist till now. In this essay I will describe, "The Cult of True Womanhood," and then argue my analysis on it. I will then exemplify how the set standards still exist in the current society. “The Cult of True Womanhood." is a set of standards. These ethics and values create a strong separation among the genders leading to tension. Essentially, it notes that men are to work and earn a living on behalf of the family. “A womans aim was to get a husband and bear children. Women were also anticipated having four major fundamental virtues that include: Purity, piety, submissiveness, and domestication. When put together they categorize them, all together as mother, daughter, sister, and wife-woman. By description, Piety is grace. Women also expected to, always remain pretty and lovely. In purity, women were expected to remain abstinent until marriage. Submissiveness means that the woman should be devoted to her husband obeying his every wish within her will and power. According to “The Cult of True Womanhood,” "Marriage union develops and improves the woman because it puts her in the best likely tuition, that of the affections, and affords capacity to her dynamic energies, but because it gives her elevated aims, and a more distinguished position" (Lindsey and Susan, p.56). In my view, this means that marriage makes a womans mindset better, gives her way and provides her with more incentives to do her daily duties and chores. Lastly, domesticity implies that a woman is to stay at home and become a housewife (Lindsey and Susan, p.56). This is my reasoning of the essay, "The Cult of True Womanhood." The Cult of Domesticity During the 19th century, middle class American women saw their actions synchronized by a social structure known at present as the cult of domesticity, which was intended to limit their sphere of control to home and family. Nevertheless, in this room, they developed forms of expressions and networks that enabled to speak out on the most important ethical questions facing the nation. The 1820 to 1860 era saw the rise in America of a philosophy of feminine manners and a model of womanliness that has come to be recognized as the “Cult of True Womanhood” or “Cult of Domesticity.” “When my boss alleged he was going to build a good house for me with little expense and trouble, I was hoping something would happen to disturb his scheme; but I soon heard that the house was in fact, started. I swore before my Maker that I would never go in it I was determined that the master, whom I so hated, who had destroyed the forecast of my youth, and made my life a wasteland, should not, after my long resistance with him, be successful at last in crushing his victim. For the sake of beating him, I would use everything I have and do everything” (Patton and Venetria, p.29). The features of a "true woman" were portrayed in women’s magazines, sermons and religious text. In the United States, “Godeys Ladys Book” and “Petersons Magazine” are the most commonly spread womens magazines and were fashionable among both women and men. Magazines which supported the values of the cult of domesticity did better financially than opposing magazines which offered a more progressive analysis in terms of womens roles. In 1860, Godeys revealed and supported the ideals of the cult of true womanhood. The magazines paintings and pictures demonstrated the four virtues, repeatedly showing women with children or behind husbands. It also compared womanhood with motherhood and being a wife, affirming that the "perfection of womanhood is the wife and mother" (Mitchell and Sarah, p.171). The magazine showed motherhood as a womans normal and most gratifying role, and encouraged women to find their accomplishment and assistance to society firmly within the home. By reflecting the model of true womanhood, Godeys acknowledged mothers as important in conserving the remembrance of the American Revolution in protecting its legacy by growing the next generation of citizens.” Only a few people speak approvable of a female who has an elegant business talent or ability. No matter how isolated her condition is, most people would put it into consideration as more feminine as would inconspicuously gather up her thimble, and gradually scooping out her coffin with it, than to extend that smart turn for business which would remove her out of her troubles, whereby in a man very positioned, would be celebrated as extremely worthy” (Yee and Shirley, p.41). As observed by Wayne and Tiffany, (p.1) “If we now perceive women in that sphere for which she was at first proposed and which she is so precisely fitted to decorate and bless the wife and mistress of the house, the support, the assistance and the counselor, for whose sake alone the world is any effect to her.” The cult of domesticity affected the labor market of married women involvement the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. "True women" were supposed to dedicate themselves to unpaid domestic labor and abstain from paid, market-oriented work. As a result, in 1890, 5% of all married women were "gainfully employed," compared with 50% of single women. Womens complete financial reliance upon their husbands proved catastrophic when wives lost their husbands through death or abandonment and were enforced to fend for themselves and their children. The division between the home and public spheres had an impact on womens authority and position. In society as a whole, mainly in political and economic areas, womens power declined. Within the home, though, they gained figurative power. Women were the middle of the domestic sphere and anticipated to execute the roles of a quiet mother, a devoted and truthful wife, a delicate and righteous creature. These women were also expected to be self-righteous and sacred, in educating those around them by their Christian way of life and expected to dependably, motivate and sustain their husbands. The women and men who most aggressively promoted these standards were commonly white, Protestant, and lived in Northeastern United States. “Books and articles by women experts about their role were to search for fulfillment as wives and mothers. They were trained to have compassion the anxious, unfeminine, miserable women who wanted to be poets or physicists. They learned that real feminine women do not want jobs, higher education and political rights many expert voices highly praised their femininity, their change, their new maturity. All they had to do was devote their lives from initial girlhood to finding a partner and bearing children.” (Mitchell and Sarah, p.177). Definitely many fortunate women provoked the boundaries placed on them by the Cult of True Womanhood, while others discovered in its borders some means for action and self-confidence building, mainly through its prominence on their responsibility to educate children and serve others. Women who were becoming triumphant in writing for the ladies discovered not only their own individual voices but at times a platform for views on community issues. While the women’s suffrage movement did not achieve adequate grip for many more decades, women who wrote in approved publications or joined acceptable church societies that started to make a distinction in the elimination movement, in the fight for possessions rights, and in women’s education. Women who campaigned for womens rights, such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Frances Wright, and Harriet Martineau, were blamed for disturbing the natural organization of things and are fated as unfeminine. In the Progressive Era, the fresh women came out as a response to the cult of true womanhood. The new woman, repeatedly linked with the suffrage movement, signified an ideal of femininity which was completely opposed to the values of that cult. Early feminist resistance to the values endorsed by the cult of domesticity terminated in the in 1848 Seneca Falls Convention in and later predisposed the second signal of feminism. After the Jacksonian era of 1812 to 1850, had approved universal white male suffrage, expanding the voting right to almost all American white males, women believed it was their chance for civil liberty. Though, even after the announcement of Sentiments that written at the 1848 Seneca Falls convention, not until 1920 when the voting right was not extended. Conclusion While the women magazines and similar literature encouraged this principle of the perfect woman, forces were at work in the 19th century which encouraged the woman herself to change, to play a more innovative role in society. The social reform movements, missionary activities, industrialism, and the Civil War all called forward reactions from woman which varied from those she was taught to believe were hers by nature and heavenly declaration. The very accomplishment and perfection of True Womanhood, furthermore, carried with it the seeds of its own demolition. For, if women were a little fewer than the angels, they should certainly take a more vigorous role in running the world, particularly since men were creating such a mess of things. Works cited Lindley, Susan H. "The Ideal American Woman". A history of women and religion in America. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press. 1996. Print Mitchell, Sarah. "A Wonderful Duty: A Study of Motherhood on Godeys Magazine". In: Sachsman, David B.; Rushing, S. Kittrell; Morris, Roy (eds). Seeking a Voice: Images of Race and Gender in the 19th Century Press. West Lafayette, Ind. Purdue University Press.2009. Print Patton, Venetria K. "The Cult of True Womanhood and its Revisions". In Women in Chains: The Legacy of Slavery in Black Womens Fiction. Albany: State University of New York Press.2000. Print Wayne, Tiffany K. Womens roles in nineteenth-century America. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.2007.Print Yee, Shirley J. "Black Women and the Cult of True Womanhood". In Black Women Abolitionists: A Study in Activitism, 1828–1860. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.1992. Print Read More