Culture 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] 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]
"Domesticity" redirects here. For the QI episode, see List of QI episodes.
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]
Influence on society[edit]
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]