Basic Information

The Culture of Domesticity, or “Cult of Domesticity” for short, was a value system that was influential to the upper and middle class during the 19^th century (Keister, 2011, p. 228). It is important to note that Black and immigrant women were often excluded from the Cult of Domesticity, and the culture demanded control over virtues women were said to have needed such as piety, purity, submission, and domesticity.

 Background Information

Based on the idea of having “separate spheres,” Barbara Welter in her “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860” describes four cardinal virtues. The virtues Welter describes are seen as the sphere or domain that women belonged in (Carroll, 2003, p. 120). Women were expected to remain in this private sphere and refrain from working or being engaged in the public sphere. These virtues, in no specific order, are piety, or women being religious; purity, meaning that women retain their virginity until marriage and remain faithful to their husbands was one of the most defining and important characteristics of a true woman; domesticity, or tending to the home and not deviating from chores such as cooking or cleaning, which were seen as being naturally feminine activities; and sastly there was submission, meaning that a true woman was inferior to a man “by God’s appointment” and she ought to act as submissive and as obedient as a child (Welter, 1966, p. 151-174).

Influence on the First Wave

Since the above cultural norms were baked into society at the time, it is quite apparent how this could influence the first wave of feminism. Men saw women who didn’t adhere to the virtues mentioned above as not true women. Women even saw themselves as needing to fill this role society told them to fill. When certain women such as Harriet Martineau or Frances Wright began to advocate for women’s rights, it was postulated that they were unfeminine and were disrupting the natural order of how woman should be (Welter, 1966, p. 151-174).

The Cult of Domesticity, according to Susan Cruea, set restrictions at the societal level that, when imposed, limited women to having a lack of freedom and working rights. An interesting twist in perspective on this issue is that perhaps this culture may have been a factor in laying a groundwork for the development of feminism. Cruea’s perspective is that since women were seen as a means to continue their husband’s legacy, this also placed a lot of value on women. A woman was seen as the moral guide to her family, and with these four cardinal virtues, virginity was also seen as a “pearl of great price” which was her greatest asset. Perhaps the most influential to the identity of women was that they were to guide their boys who would eventually grow up to be very influential in society (Cruea, 2005, p. 187-204). After voting rights were extended to all men, however, this was seen as an opportunity for women to obtain the same rights. The earliest feminist opposition to this social structure was at the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 which called for suffrage and independence.

“Woman’s great mission is to train immature, weak, and ignorant creatures 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…”
– Catherine Beecher (Beecher, 1871)

Analysis and Conclusion

All in all, I believe the Cult of Domesticity was a significant constraint of women’s liberties that is seen historically as something that could have not only empowered women in their private sphere, but also given them something to push back on. Society was at a point in time where they truly could not imagine women being on the same levels intellectually or being able to perform the same duties as men. To rally movements for causes, it is important for large amounts of people to feel compelled to act. The way society had been conditioned to restricting women could have emboldened the resistance even more or given them a rallying cry so to speak. It is hard to imagine this level of societal imprisonment being enforced on half of our population, but with how relatively recent it has been, some of the attitudes probably do carry over. It is important we address the history of this phenomenon and understand that social norms are fluid and can be broken and should be challenged.

References

A New Court of Queen’s Bench. (1811). [Illustration]. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1849-Cruikshank-feminism-caricature-Queens-Bench.jpg

Beecher, C. E. (1871). Woman suffrage and woman’s profession. Hartford: Brown & Gross.

Carroll, B. (2003). American Masculinities: A Historical Encyclopedia (Sage Reference Publication) (1st ed.). SAGE Publications, Inc.

Cruea, Susan (2005). Changing Ideals of Womanhood During the Nineteenth-Century   Woman Movement. American Transcendental Quarterly. 19 (3): 187–204.

Keister, L. A., & Southgate, D. E. (2011). Inequality: A Contemporary Approach to Race, Class, and Gender (1st ed.). Cambridge University Press.

The Complete Godey’s Lady’s Book – 1830–1896. (2015, December 11). Accessible Archives Inc. https://www.accessible-archives.com/collections/godeys-ladys-book/

Welter, B. (1966). The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820–1860. American Quarterly, 18(2), 151. https://doi.org/10.2307/2711179