Introducing
Your new presentation assistant.
Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.
Trending searches
Women in the 19th Century
6
Women in the
early 19th century
Elizabeth B, Abby Nay, and Jada B
Motherhood
Thesis
- Women took pride in being a mother
- Sickness: women did not have everyman children
- Once a woman got pregnant, the father was to marry her at once
- Youngest age to become a mother and marry was 12
Republican Motherhood
Women were considered lesser citizens until the 19th century when the foundations of republicanism stressed equality among all citizens of the United States. Republicanism affected women in the early 19th century by encouraging a republican motherhood, in which educated women would raise educate children, increasing companionate marriages, where women married for love, and women began to publicly demand protection of their rights, however, women were still seen as lesser citizens who were subordinate to men.
- Readily embraced by christian ministers
- "Preserving virtue and instructing the young are not the fancied, but the real 'Rights of Women'"- Reverend Thomas Bernard
- Caring for the young allegedly gave women over the fortunes of men in every generation
Marriage
"Women, generally, are neither by nature, nor habit, nor education, not by their necessary condition in society fitted to perform this duty with credit to themselves or advantage to the public"- Letter to a newspaper justifying the exclusion of women from the right to vote.
- The patriarchal family was being questioned as a social contrivance, not a "natural" rule
- Abuse : if husbands abused their wives they would be prosecuted or removed from their home
- Divorce : petitions began to cite emotional grounds, drunkenness, and personal cruelty, and were granted more freely
- Cultural Attitudes: Sentimentalism was an idea that encouraged emotionalism, which influenced the U.S. in the form of love-based marriages over financial considerations
- "True Equality" in practice: Companionate marriages were in theory based on equality and mutual respect (men saw wives as partners, not dependents), however, husbands still controlled everything (property and deep-seated male authority)
Thoughts on women
Mary Wollstonecraft
- Despite republican doctrine of equality, women were still denied basic rights
- Gender restrictions explicitly written into the law
- However: N.J. 1776 suffrage for all property holders!! W/ competition for votes, widows and single women were encouraged to vote-- but 1807 changed to men only :(
- This idea of women's political rights extended to debate of authority in the household
- Some women demanded control of their finances and spoke out in public
- Those hypocrites! Men believed in equality between white men but not for women or slaves
Works Cited:
Henretta, James A. America's History. New York: Worth, 1993. Print.