“The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860”

Definition

• Also known as “the cult of domesticity,” was the idea that womanly virtue is found in “piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity”

• A possible response to the rise in industrial capitalism

These virtues spelled “mother, daughter, sister, wife.” A woman who possessed the four

cardinal virtues “was promised happiness and power.”

Barbara Welter, historian, writes• “The nineteenth-century American man was a

busy builder of bridges and railroads, at work long hours in a materialistic society. The religious values of his forbears were neglected in practice if not in intent, and he occasionally felt some guilt that he had turned this new land, this temple of the chosen people, into one vast counting house. But he could salve his conscience by reflecting that he had left behind a hostage, not only to fortune, but to all the values which he held so dear and treated so lightly.”

At the core of the “True woman”?

Religion, considered the source of women’s strength, was believed to be necessary to light “the naughty world of men,” becoming a “better Eve” who, with the help of God, would restore order and morality, improving and harmonizing the world, saving from its sins.

Religion helped to quell the longings of the human heart.

“Women were expected to uphold the values of stability, morality, and democracy by making the home a special place, a refuge from the world where her husband could escape from the highly competitive, unstable, immoral world of business and industry. “

Purity

A woman who lacked purity in the nineteenth century was “no woman at all, but a member of some lower order.”

A woman who had “fallen” was a “fallen angel” not worthy to socialize with others of her sex.

A True Woman was urged to maintain her purity and to resist any man who might seek to assault it. In so doing, she not only saves her self, but she also helps to elevate the man spiriturally.

Hierarchy of OrderGod

Man

WomanThe most feminine virtue in woman was

submission; woman should submit “for the sake of good order at least.”

A woman’s place?In the home, of course!

Or rather, the fireside. . .

According to a woman’s magazine in the 19th century, “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.”

As an extension of her domestic duties, a true woman comforted the sick in her role as nurse.

Virtues of the true woman as nurse:–Patience–Mercy–Gentleness

Thus a woman was valued for her domestic arts as well as for her usefulness.

Marriage• Seen in terms of service• Believed to improve the female character• Gives a woman an avenue to pursue higher goals

and to achieve a “dignified position.”• A “balance of power” in which “the man bears rule

over his wife’s person and conduct” and the wife is in control of the man’s “inclinations.”

• Women should marry not for money, but for love.• Motherhood as a corollary—a true mother loves

her children

Women had two choices:

1. Accept their identity and preserve the “beautiful order of society”

2. Choose another more independent path and lose her “happiness and her power” in addition to the break up of society and the weakening of democracy.

Application to The ScArlet Letter:What characteristics of True

Womanhood does Hester embody?