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The culture of domesticity (often shortened to "cult of domesticity") or cult of true womanhood is a term used by some historians to describe what they consider to have been a prevailing value system among the upper and middle classes during the nineteenth century in the United States and Great Britain. 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".
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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. 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.
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, nineteenth-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.
Virtues
Part of the separate spheres ideology, the "Cult of Domesticity" identified the home as women's "proper sphere". 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.According to Barbara Welter (1966), "True Women" were to hold and practice the four cardinal virtues:
- 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.
- Purity – Virginity, a woman's greatest treasure, must not be lost until her marriage night, and married women had to remain committed only to their husbands.
- 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".
- 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.
Physically, according to Wilma Pearl Mankiller, 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."
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.
The characteristics of "True Womanhood" were described in sermons, books, and religious texts as well as women's magazines. 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. 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. 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. With a circulation of 150,000 by 1860, Godey's reflected and supported some of the ideals of the "Cult of True Womanhood." 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". 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. 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. 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.
Influence
The Cult of Domesticity affected married women's labor market participation in the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. "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 when wives lost their husbands through death or desertion and were forced to fend for themselves and their children. This division between the domestic and public spheres had effects on women's power and status. In society as a whole, particularly in political and economic arenas, women's power declined. Within the home, however, they gained symbolic power.
The legal implications of this ideology included the passage of protective labor laws, which also limited women's employment opportunities outside the home. 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.
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 genders (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...." 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.
Connection to the women's movement
Women's rights advocates of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth 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. 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 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.
During the Progressive Era, The ideal of the New Woman emerged as a response to the Cult of True Womanhood. The New Woman, frequently associated with the suffrage movement, represented an ideal of femininity which was strongly opposed to the values of the Cult of True Womanhood. 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.
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. 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. 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" shaped an idealized myth of the family and paved the way for the nuclear family. Opposition to those ideas influenced the second wave of feminism.