Before people can define scandalous women behaviors, they have to understand what was expected of American women. Women expectations were held at a higher standard than men. The women that defy the stereotypes for American women were seemed less valuable and punished by God for their behaviors. The main roles for women was to be religious, marry, take care of their children, and live by four virtues. The four virtues women were expected to live by were piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity. The ideal women who upheld and reinforced traditional American gender norms and expectations in American history were Anne Bradstreet, the Republican Mothers, and women like Catherine Beecher who followed the Cult of True Womanhood.
Anne Bradstreet
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Women had to be religious because it was one of the first things that men looked for in a woman. Women needed religion because it did not take them away from the separate sphere. Purity was important because a woman was not considered a woman at all if she was not pure. They called women who lost their purity fallen angels. There were magazines for women that showed them how they should act and look in order to be a true woman. Submission was considered the most feminine virtue expected of women. “To suffer and to be silent under. Suffering seems the great command she has to obey.” This mean that if a woman was not submissive, she would be punished. The last one is domesticity. Domesticity was the most prized characteristic of an ideal woman. Mrs. S. E. Farley said, "the true dignity and beauty of the female character seem to consist in a right understanding and faithful and cheerful performance of social and family duties." Catherine Becher was one of the women that followed the Cult of True Womanhood. She helped spread the cult of true womanhood to people in her town. Catherine Becher advocated taking women's sphere to the classroom. She believed that it was their duty to teach their children and to be domestic.
In conclusion, these are the things that an ideal woman should be. Women had different roles than men and had to follow them. If women did not follow the rules for an ideal woman, they could be viewed as scandalous. Today, woman roles have changed so much from this time period. Woman and men now have various views about what they look for in a
“People in “polite society” demanded that ladies live under the guidance and protection of their fathers, husbands, or other male relatives. Women could not
During to the 18th century, women were taught they had a very specific place in a patriarchal society, and from an early age were taught how to achieve this place. Women were taught they needed to embody piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity according to Barbara Welter in her paper, “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860,” published in 1966. A woman was told if she embodied all of these traits she would be a “true woman”. In 1798, Charles Brockden Brown published Wieland: or, The Transformation: An American Tale.
Following the American Revolution and the separation from Britain, the main group that seemed to “hold all the power” were men, mostly white, of property. Many other groups during this time did not hold the same amount of power as the men. Women, in particular, suffered in terms of rights during and after the American Revolution. Between how women were to be seen in the eye of the public and their place in politics, women had very little rights.
In the colonial era, women did not have many rights, and people did not consider them as equals to men, especially in Puritan New England where the Puritan beliefs governed society. Society expected women to get married, have children, and obey their husbands; they considered anything outside of these limitations as radical confrontations to the law. The woman’s main contribution to society was to teach the young girls about the customs and appropriate behaviors of a woman (Jolliffe, Roskelly, 242.45). Strict barriers existed in a woman’s life, and if a woman were to break those boundaries, like Anne Hutchinson - a revolutionary Puritan spiritual advisor - did, critics accused them of being non-compliant and harmful to society. They considered
In the seventeenth century Chesapeake women had different roles than other colonial women. Chesapeake women were expected to work in the house, raise their kids and work with their husbands in the “tedious care of tobacco plants.” (page 13) Unlike in the English society, they lacked a sense of “housewifery” due to the fact that they had the lack of spinning wheels and churns. (page 13) Since mortality rate was so high it was excepted of not just men but especially women to marry multiply time.
On the other hand, women were to display qualities of grace, physical beauty, purity, feebleness and must also be well versed in the liberal arts. Although the contemporary world has transformed into
The stereotypical view of women is that they should have multiple children, clean, cook, and be obedient. Women had no authority or independence, women who were married couldn’t own property, or work unless given permission from their
Also exclusive was their “sphere,” or domain of influence, which was confined completely to the home. Thus the Cult of Domesticity “privatized” women’s options for work, for education, for voicing opinions, or for supporting reform. The true woman would take on the obligations of housekeeping, raising good children, and making her family’s home a haven of health, happiness, and virtue. All society would benefit from her performance of these sacred domestic
A woman 's place in this play and in this time period was in the house taking care of the chores and children, than their other job was to go to church and make sure their family goes to church. Women are always doing anything the men ask them to do without a hesitation, if they didn’t want to do it they would make their wife or servant do it for them, because they have more power than the women did. A
Attending church is mandatory and expected from everyone, in order to be accepted. The women were involuntary secondary to the men of this
For the 19th century America, the two sexes were to be separated into distinct spheres, the man’s public sphere and the woman’s private one. It was most common for the two sexes to spend their time mostly in the company of their own sex, and advices were given to the younger members of the society on the proper way of behaving according to one’s sex. Even though both sexes had to be instructed on how to perform in each other’s company, it was the shaping of a woman that needed to undergo through a series of instructions on the proper way to be a woman. A woman had to follow the rules of the Cult of True Womanhood to be considered proper and wife material. Fanny Fern in her writing appeals on and discusses the attributes of piety, purity, submissiveness,
Women had to abide by certain rules and principles in the Puritan Society. If they did not obey the specific rules they would be severely punished, or even killed. The women who did not obey the rules were also seen as dangerous. “The husband is called the head of woman. It belongs to the head to rule and govern.”
There were very high standards for women during the Elizabethan Era. Elizabethans thought that a woman’s outer appearance was merely a reflection of her inner condition (Papp and Kirkland). Women were valued for their beauty and qualities such as being submissive, passive, modest, humble, temperate, and kind (Zuber). A good woman was also obedient, modest, and had virtue and chastity (Papp and Kirkland). John Knox, a Scottish protestant leader said, “Women in her greatest perfection was made to serve and obey man” (Alchin).
She speaks of all the contribution most of the women make and that men never appreciate, things that men think are the obligation of the wife. For instance, the writer says, “I want a wife who will keep my clothes clean, ironed, mended, replaced when need be, and who will see to it that my personal things are kept in their proper place so that I can find what I need the minute I need it” (Brady 503). This explains that, men want everything to be done by their wife, so they can only have whatever they need without doing some effort. Another example the author gives is that men want everything from women to be done, even that women have the same rights and obligations as men.
Anne Bradstreet (1612 – 1672) has been a long-lasting leading figure in the American literature who embodied a myriad of identities; she was a Puritan, poet, feminist, woman, wife, and mother. Bradstreet’s poetry was a presence of an erudite voice that animadverted the patriarchal constraints on women in the seventeenth century. In a society where women were deprived of their voices, Bradstreet tried to search for their identities. When the new settlers came to America, they struggled considerably in defining their identities. However, the women’s struggles were twice than of these new settlers; because they wanted to ascertain their identities in a new environment, and in a masculine society.