1. The Cult of Domesticity
Women of the 19th Century

2. What was the Cult of Domesticity?
It was a new ideal of behavior for women, arising from women’s magazines, advice books, popular culture, etc.

3. Godey’s Lady’s Book
A. Most widely circulated ladies magazine in the US;
B. Encouraged motherhood;
1. Paintings and pictures depicted the “ideal” woman;
2. Fashion stressed to make women attractive to husbands.

4. Godey’s proclaimed
A. the wife and mother are the center of the family;
B. "The wife is truly the light of the home."

5. Ideal of Womanhood
Piety
Purity
Submissiveness
Domesticity

6. Piety
Belief that women must believe in a religion and enforce this upon their children.

7. Submissiveness
A. Women to be passive, submissive to fate, duty, God and men;
B. Clothing emphasized passivity
1. Corsets closed off lungs and pinched inner organs
2. Large numbers of undergarments and weight of dresses limited mobility

8. Domesticity
A. Defined: anything related to or of the home; “Housework is an uplifting task.”
B. Women make the home a refuge for men so that they can escape from the crazy outside world.

9. Purity A. Once married, she has no legal or emotional existence
B. 19th century purity fetish
Limbs, not legs
White meat, not breast
Cover table and chair legs
Separate male and female authors
Stork and cabbage patch stories of babies