Cult of Domesticity

The Culture of Domesticity (often shortened to Cult of Domesticity[1]) or Cult of True Womanhood[a] is a term used by historians to describe what they consider to have been a prevailing value system among the upper and middle classes during the 19th Century in the United States[2] and the United Kingdom. This value system emphasized new ideas of femininity, the woman's role within the home and the dynamics of work and family. "True women", according to this idea, were supposed to possess four cardinal virtues: piety, purity, domesticity, and submissiveness. The idea revolved around the woman being the center of the family; she was considered "the light of the home".[3][4]

The women and men who most actively promoted these standards were generally white and Protestant; the most prominent of them lived in New England and the Northeastern United States.[5] Although all women were supposed to emulate this ideal of femininity, black, working class, and immigrant women were often excluded from the definition of "true women" because of social prejudice.[6][7][8][9]

Since the idea was first advanced by Barbara Welter in 1966, many historians have argued that the subject is far more complex and nuanced than terms such as "Cult of Domesticity" or "True Womanhood" suggest, and that the roles played by and expected of women within the middle-class, 19th-Century context were quite varied and often contradictory; for example, it has been argued that much of what has been considered as anti-feminist in the past, in fact, helped lead to feminism.[10]

Virtues
Godey's Lady's Book was a highly influential women's magazine which reinforced many of the values of the Cult of Domesticity.[11]

Part of the separate spheres ideology, the "Cult of Domesticity" identified the home as women's "proper sphere".[12] Women were supposed to inhabit the private sphere, running the household and production of food (including servants), rearing the children, and taking care of the husband.[13][14] According to Barbara Welter (1966), "True Women" were to hold and practice the four cardinal virtues:[3]

  1. Piety – Religion was valued because—unlike intellectual pursuits—it did not take a woman away from her "proper sphere," the home, and because it controlled women's longings.
  2. Purity – Virginity, a woman's greatest treasure, must not be lost until her marriage night, and a married woman had to remain committed only to her husband.
  3. Submission – True women were required to be as submissive and obedient "as little children" because men were regarded as women's superiors "by God's appointment".
  4. Domesticity – A woman's proper place was in the home and her role as a wife was to create a refuge for her husband and children. Cooking, needlework, making beds, and tending flowers were considered naturally feminine activities, whereas reading anything other than religious biographies was discouraged.

According to Welter, an ideal True Woman was "frail", too mentally and physically weak to leave her home. The care of her home supposedly made her feminine, and she depended on men to protect her within the shelter of it.[15] Wilma Mankiller agrees, claiming that a "True Woman" was expected to be delicate, soft, and weak. She should not engage in strenuous physical activity that would damage her “much more delicate nervous system."[16]

Frances B. Cogan, however, described an overlapping but competing ideology that she called the ideal of "Real Womanhood," in which women were encouraged to be physically fit and active, involved in their communities, well educated, and artistically accomplished, although usually within the broader idea that women were best suited to the domestic sphere. The conflation of "Domesticity" and "True Womanhood" can be misleading in that dedication to the domestic sphere did not necessarily imply purity, submission, or weakness.[17]

The characteristics of "True Womanhood" were described in sermons, books, and religious texts as well as women's magazines.[18] [19] Prescriptive literature advised women on how to transform their homes into domestic sanctuaries for their husbands and children. Fashion was also stressed because a woman had to stay up to date in order to please her husband. Instructions for seamstresses were often included in magazines.[20] Magazines which promoted the values of the "Cult of Domesticity" fared better financially than those competing magazines which offered a more progressive view in terms of women's roles.[11] In the United States, Peterson's Magazine and Godey's Lady's Book were the most widely circulated women's magazines and were popular among both women and men.[21] With a circulation of 150,000 by 1860,[22] Godey's reflected and supported some of the ideals of the "Cult of True Womanhood."[11] The magazine's paintings and pictures illustrated the four virtues, often showing women with children or behind husbands. It also equated womanhood with motherhood and being a wife, declaring that the "perfection of womanhood (...) is the wife and mother".[23][24] The magazine presented motherhood as a woman's natural and most satisfying role and encouraged women to find their fulfillment and their contributions to society mainly within the home.[25] At the same time, the long-time editor of Godey's, Sarah Josepha Hale, encouraged women to improve themselves intellectually, to write, and to take action that would improve the moral character of their communities and their nation. Hale promoted Vassar College, advocated for female physicians, and published many of the most important female writers of the nineteenth century.[26] Frances B. Cogan argued that Godey's supported "Real Womanhood" more than "True Womanhood." Reflecting the ideals of both "True Womanhood" and "Real Womanhood," Godey's considered mothers as crucial in preserving the memory of the American Revolution and in securing its legacy by raising the next generation of citizens.[17]

Influence

The Cult of Domesticity affected married women's labor market participation in the 19th and the beginning of the 20th Century.[27] "True Women" were supposed to devote themselves to unpaid domestic labor and refrain from paid, market-oriented work. Consequently, in 1890, 4.5% of all married women were "gainfully employed," compared with 40.5% of single women. Women's complete financial dependence upon their husbands proved disastrous, however, when wives lost their husbands through death or desertion and were forced to fend for themselves and their children.[28] This division between the domestic and public spheres had effects on women's power and status. In the society as a whole, particularly in political and economic arenas, women's power declined. Within the home, however, they gained symbolic power.[29]

The legal implications of this ideology included the passage of protective labor laws, which also limited women's employment opportunities outside the home.[30] These laws, as well as subsequent Supreme Court rulings such as Muller v. Oregon, were based on the assumption that women's primary role was that of mother and wife, and that women's non-domestic work should not interfere with their primary function. As a result, women's working hours were limited and night work for women was prohibited, essentially costing many female workers their jobs and excluding them from many occupations.[30]

The Cult of Domesticity “privatized” women’s options for work, for education, for voicing opinions, or for supporting reform. Arguments of significant biological differences between the sexes (and often of female inferiority) led to pronouncements that women were incapable of effectively participating in the realms of politics, commerce, or public service. Women were seen as better suited to parenting. Also, because of the expected behaviors, women were assumed to make better teachers of younger children. Catharine Beecher, who proselytised about the importance of education and parenting, once said, "Woman's great mission is to train immature, weak, and ignorant creatures [children] to obey the laws of God...first in the family, then in the school, then in the neighborhood, then in the nation, then in the world...." [31] One of the first public jobs for women was teaching. One estimate says that, with the growth of public education in the northern tier of states, one-quarter of all native-born Massachusetts women in the years between 1825 and 1860 were schoolteachers at some point in their lives.[32]

Connection to the women's movement
A New Court of Queen's Bench, an 1849 caricature by George Cruikshank, mocking the idea of women taking over the all-male world of the high courts of law.

Women's rights advocates of the late 18th and early 19th Centuries, such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Frances Wright, and Harriet Martineau, were widely accused of disrupting the natural order of things and condemned as unfeminine. "They are only semi-women, mental hermaphrodites," wrote Henry F. Harrington in the Ladies' Companion.[33] However, after the Jacksonian Era (1812 to 1850) saw the expansion of voting rights to virtually all white males in the United States, many women believed it was their opportunity for increased civil liberties. Early feminist opposition to many of the values promoted by the Cult of Domesticity (especially concerning women's suffrage, political activism, and legal independence) culminated in the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848.

Susan M. Cruea postulated that although the “Cult of True Womanhood” set many societal restrictions that took away women's working rights and freedom, it nonetheless laid the groundwork for the later development of feminism by crediting women with a moral authority which implicitly empowered them to extend their moral influence outside the home. The ideal woman was expected to act as a status symbol for men and reflect her husband's wealth and success, and was to create babies and care for them so that her husband’s legacy of success would continue, but she was also seen as the “Angel in the House” whose purpose was to guide her family morally. Because of the perceived importance of the role, this ideology was imprinted on girls at a very young age; these girls were taught to value their virginity as the “‘pearl of great price’ which was her greatest asset” and to develop the skills to manage a household and rear children, but they were also taught to see themselves as “a pillar of strength and virtue” who was key not only in providing her husband a proper image but in raising boys who would later have a direct impact on the success of the nation.[34]

During the Progressive Era,[35] the ideal of the New Woman emerged as a response to the Cult of True Womanhood.[36] The New Woman, frequently associated with the suffrage movement,[37] represented an ideal of femininity which was strongly opposed to the values of the Cult of True Womanhood.[38] With demands expressed in the Declaration of Sentiments, written at the Seneca Falls convention in 1848, women finally gained ratification of a constitutional amendment and the right to vote in 1920. After emancipation, these New Women could be identified by as “cigarette-smoking, lipsticked and rouged, jazz-dancing, birth-control-using types known as ‘modern girls’ or flappers.”[39]

World War II brought about a restructuring of the labor market as women stepped into the war effort on the home front. In the era after World War II, many of the ideas of the "Cult of Domesticity" were stressed again as American society sought to integrate veterans and emphasize the revival of family life. Once the troops returned home, men were encouraged to embrace family life and enter companionship marriages. Veterans returned home to be the head of the family and women who had been involved in high-paying and high-skilled wartime jobs were pushed back into the home. The remaking of the private life was central to this era. Anticommunism structured much of the American life, emphasizing the free enterprise system which brought about a period of economic prosperity and a consumer culture.

In the 1950s television shows often presented series that depicted fictional families in which the mother's primary work was to raise the children and run the household. Men's and women's spheres were increasingly separated as many families lived in suburban settings, from which men commuted to other cities for work. However, this image of separate spheres disguised the reality that all groups of women continued to work for pay; many did not stop working after the men returned home from the war, they were instead forced into lower-paying jobs. Wages were low and there was little room for advancement. Women that did enter into professional fields were under intense scrutiny for going against the feminine domestic ideal. Despite neo-domestic ideals, many middle-class mothers were burdened by women’s double shift of working in the home and also a job. At the same time, women had independent lives during the day and were often active in volunteer and community activities, particularly around issues of education, health, children, and welfare. The "Cult of Domesticity" paved the way for the nuclear family.[40] Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique summed up the expectations of female nature of this time, with a focus on “consumerism, sexualized marriage, and civic activism.”[41] Opposition to those ideas influenced the second wave of feminism.[42]

gollark: Pyramids and cubes also available.
gollark: I mean, it loses the whole "scarcity" thing of actual eggs, but hey, it looks cool.
gollark: The new versions even come with a sort of partial reimplementation of the rightclick-and-it-teleports feature (it disappears on rightclick).
gollark: 2KST.
gollark: Just buy a SynthetiEgg.

See also

References
Notes
  1. ^ The home and the idea of domesticity were so important in 19th century culture that historians speak of the "cult" of domesticity.[21] The phrase "True Womanhood" was used by mid-19th Century authors who wrote about the subject of women.[43]
Citations
  1. Lisa A. Keister, Darby E. Southgate (2011). Inequality: A Contemporary Approach to Race, Class, and Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 228. ISBN 978-0-521-68002-8.
  2. Keister 2011, p. 228.
  3. Welter 1966, p. 152.
  4. Lavender, Catherine. "Notes on The Cult of Domesticity Womanhood" (PDF). The College of Staten Island/CUNY. Retrieved 27 October 2014.
  5. Lindley, Susan Hill (1996). "The Ideal American Woman". In You have stepped out of your place: a history of women and religion in America. Louisville, Kentucky.: Westminster John Knox Press, p. 56. ISBN 978-0-664-22081-5.
  6. Patton, Venetria K. (2000). "The Cult of True Womanhood and its Revisions", In Women in Chains: The Legacy of Slavery in Black Women's Fiction. Albany: State University of New York Press, pp. 29–30. ISBN 978-0-7914-4343-9.
  7. Yee, Shirley J. (1992). "Black Women and the Cult of True Womanhood", In Black Women Abolitionists: A Study in Activism, 1828–1860. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, p. 41. ISBN 978-0-87049-735-3.
  8. Tyson, Lois (2001). Learning for a Diverse World: Using Critical Theory to Read and Write about Literature, New York: Routledge, pp. 88–89. ISBN 978-0-8153-3773-7.
  9. O'Brien, Jodi A.; Newman, David M. (2010). Sociology: Exploring the Architecture of Everyday Life. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Pine Forge Press, an Imprint of Sage Publications, p. 294. ISBN 978-1-4129-7942-9.
  10. Rupp, Leila J. (2002). "Woman's History in the New Millennium: A Retrospective Analysis of Barbara Welter's "The Cult of True Womanhood." Journal of Women's History 14.1.
  11. Endres, Kathleen L.; Lueck; Therese L. (1995). Women's Periodicals in the United States: Consumer Magazines. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, p. xii. ISBN 978-0-313-28631-5.
  12. Carroll, Bret E. (2003). American Masculinities: A Historical Encyclopedia. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE Publications. pp. 120–122. ISBN 978-0-7619-2540-8.
  13. Landry, Bart (2000). Black Working Wives: Pioneers of the American Family Revolution. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 22–23. ISBN 978-0-520-21826-0.
  14. Buillet, Richard W. (2005). The Earth and Its Peoples: A Global History (3rd ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p. 586. ISBN 978-0-618-40334-9.
  15. Welter, Barbara. ""The Cult of True Womanhood:1820-1860"" (PDF). American Quarterly. 18:2: 151.
  16. Mankiller 1998, p. 571.
  17. Cogan, Frances B., All-American Girl: The Ideal of Real Womanhood in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America, University of Georgia Press 2010.
  18. Brannon, Linda (2005). Gender: Psychological Perspectives. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, pp. 154–155. ISBN 978-0-205-40457-5.
  19. DuBois & Dumenil 2005, p. 188.
  20. Fitts, Robert K. (1999). "The Archaeology of Middle-Class Domesticity and Gentility in Victorian Brooklyn". Historical Archaeology. Society for Historical Archaeology. 33 (1): 39–62.
  21. Matthews, Glenna (1987). "Just a Housewife": The Rise and Fall of Domesticity in America. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 6, 42. ISBN 978-0-19-503859-0.
  22. Fackler, Mark; Lippy, Charles H. (1995). Popular Religious Magazines of the United States. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, p. 241. ISBN 978-0-313-28533-2.
  23. Green, Harvey; Perry, Mary-Ellen (1983). The Light of the Home: An Intimate View of the Lives of Women in Victorian America. New York: Pantheon Books, p. 180. ISBN 978-0-394-52746-8.
  24. Wayne, Tiffany K. (2007). Women's roles in nineteenth-century America. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, p. 1, ISBN 978-0-313-33547-1.
  25. Mitchell, Sarah (2009). "A Wonderful Duty: A Study of Motherhood on Godey's 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, pp. 171–178. ISBN 978-1-55753-505-4.
  26. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2017-01-01. Retrieved 2016-12-22.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  27. Bose, Christine E. (1987). "Dual Spheres". In Hess, Beth B.; Ferree, Myra Marx. Analyzing Gender: A Handbook of Social Science Research. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications, pp. 278–279. ISBN 978-0-8039-2719-3.
  28. Mankiller 1998, pp. 263–266.
  29. Rotman, Deborah L. Historical Archaeology of Gendered Lives. New York; London: Springer, 2009, p. 19. ISBN 978-0-387-89668-7.
  30. Baron, Ava (1981). "Protective Labor Legislation and the Cult of Domesticity". Journal of Family Issues. SAGE Publications. 2 (1): 25–38. doi:10.1177/0192513X8100200103.
  31. Beecher, Catharine, Woman's Suffrage and Woman's Profession, Hartford 1871.
  32. Bernard, Richard and Maris Vinovskis, "The Female Schoolteacher in Ante-Bellum Massachusetts," Journal of Social History v. 10 #3, March 1977.
  33. Welter 1966, p. 173.
  34. Cruea, Susan (2005). "Changing Ideals of Womanhood During the Nineteenth-Century Woman Movement". American Transcendental Quarterly. 19 (3): 187–204.
  35. Lindenmeyer, Kriste (2000). Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Lives: Women in American History. Wilmington, Del.: SR Books, p. 134. ISBN 978-0-8420-2752-6.
  36. "The Cult of Domesticity and the Reaction: From True Women to New Women". In Lorence, James J.; Boyer, Paul S. (200). Enduring Voices: document sets to accompany The Enduring Vision, a History of the American People. Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath, p. 85, ISBN 978-0-395-96084-4.
  37. Patterson, Martha H. (2008). The American New Woman Revisited: A Reader, 1894–1930. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, p. 6. ISBN 978-0-8135-4494-6.
  38. Trites, Roberta Seelinger (2007). Twain, Alcott, and the Birth of the Adolescent Reform Novel. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, p. 92. ISBN 978-1-58729-622-2.
  39. Stansell, Christine (2011). The feminist promise : 1792 to the present (Modern Library paperback ed.). New York: Modern Library. p. 180. ISBN 978-0812972023.
  40. Wegener 2005, p. 36.
  41. Stansell, Christine (2011). The feminist promise : 1792 to the present (Modern Library paperback ed.). New York: Modern Library. p. 183. ISBN 978-0812972023.
  42. Ford, Lynne E. (2008). Encyclopedia of Women and American Politics. New York: Facts On File, pp. 136–37. ISBN 978-0-8160-5491-6.
  43. Welter 1966, p. 151.
Bibliography
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