Cult of domesticity

The cult of domesticity, also known as the cult of true womanhood, is an ideology about the roles proper for white women in the 1800s. This way of thinking promoted the ideal that wealthy white women should stay at home and should not do any work outside of the home. This ideology promoted an ideal of separate spheres, in which women remained in the home and men led out in the world. Four ideals were held up for women to aspire to:

1. Be more religious than men (piety)
2. Be pure in heart, mind, and body (purity)
3. Be deferential to their husbands (submissiveness)
4. Act as keepers of home and hearth, concerned chiefly with household duties (domesticity)

The idea of this domesticity was practiced in 1820. However, the ideology was not recognized and truly followed until the 1840s and 1850. Some think that this domesticity came to an end only when the Civil War had ended (in 1865) due to some changes in beliefs about women's roles.

This ideology strongly discouraged women from obtaining an education. This ideology was thought to elevate the moral status of women and benefit them in ways such as living lives of higher material comfort. It made the roles of wife and mother important in society.

Cult Of Domesticity Media

• 

  Family life is a key value of domesticity

• 

  Godey's Lady's Book was a highly influential women's magazine which reinforced many of the values of the Cult of Domesticity.

• 

  A New Court of Queen's Bench, an 1849 caricature by George Cruikshank, mocking the idea of women taking over the all-male world of the high courts of law.

• 

  Still from the film "Le Repas de bébé", a 1895 family-centered short.

References

2. https://study.com/academy/lesson/cult-of-domesticity-definition-significance.html

3. https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/117679/Bonventre.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y