Introduction
Starting with Barbara Welter in the mid-1960s, feminist scholarship has explored the various issues and aspects of the ‘cult of True Womanhood.’ This phrase refers to an ideology that developed in the mid-nineteenth century that defined what it meant to be a True Woman in America during that time period as it is represented in the written records of diaries, journals, newspapers, magazines and other media. Scholarship has focused on how this ideology was promoted both by women and men, constricting others to ‘fall into line’ if they wished to be accepted in society. At the same time it was working to constrain women within a codified image, this thought process served as the catalyst to push women into the public sphere.
Although the idea of the True Woman really only defined a small percentage of the women of America, namely the white, middle-class urban woman, this ideology functioned to both constrain women from participating in the world outside of the home as well as to propel women into the outer world.
Main text
The idea of True Womanhood was based upon an Americanized version of the English Victorian ideals. “The attributes of True Womanhood, by which a woman judged herself and was judged by her husband, her neighbors and society, could be divided into four cardinal virtues – piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity. Put them all together and they spelled mother, daughter, sister, wife – woman.
Without them, no matter whether there was fame, achievement or wealth, all was ashes. With them, she was promised happiness and power” (Welter 1966 p. 152). In leaving the farms for the cities with the new modernization of the cities and factories, Welter and others hypothesized that it became necessary for women to uphold the traditional ideologies the family had held dear while in a rural setting, thereby restricting them to a single idealized image of what embodies the True Woman. “The nineteenth-century American man was … at work long hours in a materialistic society.
The religious values of his forebears 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 countinghouse. 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. Woman, in the cult of True Womanhood … was the hostage in the home” (Welter 1966 p. 21).
The hierarchy of the four core values of True Womanhood was further delineated by Welter in their order of social importance. “Young men looking for a mate were cautioned to search first for piety, for if that were there, all else would follow” (Welter 1966 p. 152). Because religion didn’t take women away from her proper place within the home like so many other societies or movements did, piety was considered a safe avenue for a woman to pursue. “She would be another, better Eve, working in cooperation with the Redeemer, bringing the world back from its revolt and sin. The world would be reclaimed for God through her suffering” (Welter 1966 p. 152). Next to piety, purity was necessary in order to access the power inherent in the cult.
“Without [purity] she was, in fact, no woman at all, but a member of some lower order … To contemplate the loss of purity brought tears; to be guilty of such a crime … brought madness or death” (Welter 1966 p. 154). However, this power was expected to be relinquished upon the wedding night as the woman traded in her purity, setting up a paradox that proved difficult to explain away. “Woman must preserve her virtue until marriage and marriage was necessary for her happiness. Yet, marriage was, literally, an end to innocence. She was told not to question this dilemma, but simply to accept it” (Welter 1966 p. 158). Therefore, submission became a defining aspect of the feminine, also placing her squarely by her own fireside first as daughter and sister, later as wife and mother, bringing in the fourth dimension of domesticity. “If she chose to listen to other voices than those of her proper mentors, sought other rooms than those of her home, she lost both her happiness and her power” (Welter 1966 p. 173).
However, Welter also points out that the very definition of True Womanhood established the base for its own failure in that it defined Woman in such an idealized state that it was difficult to argue why her ideas should be confined to the home rather than the greater world outside, “especially since men were making such a hash of things” (Welter 1966 p. 174). Evidence in the written documents indicate that the universal acceptance of this idea of womanhood was not necessarily as widely embraced as nineteenth-century American society might have wished. Both within and without the cult, women were beginning to rebel against its constraining aspects from early on, whether they realized what they were doing or not.
For those women who felt the cult was correct in that the True Woman held a special bond with the Supreme Being that enabled her to adhere more closely to the tenets of the traditional belief system, it was a natural extension to feel that it was these individuals who should be heard within the greater community as a force to protect the very home in which she was given dominion. For others, accepting the yoke of the True Woman was a hindrance to their expressing what they felt were equally valid thoughts and ideas, wishing to be able to pursue their limits to the same degree as men without the unnatural restrictions imposed on them by those men. In describing the types of women that emerged from this culture, Welter explained “some challenged the standard, some tried to keep the virtues and enlarge the scope of womanhood. Somehow through this mixture of challenge and acceptance, or change and continuity, the True Woman evolved into the New Woman” (Welter 1966 p. 174).
There were many women who helped show the way, but two in particular, Catherine Beecher and Francis Willard, who invoked the strength of the True Woman and worked within the cult to bring about the social change they felt was necessary in obtaining the evolution of the cult to that of the New Woman, both of whom are brought forward as examples by Welter.
Conclusion
By explaining what was meant by the term ‘True Woman’, Welter clearly demonstrates how women were defined and constrained within a particular social ideal that had little to do with their own wants and abilities but was instead a concept that was instructed from the earliest childhood as a system of belief. Women were pure and sensible while men had good judgment and the strength and resources to battle the forces of evil. A deeper investigation into just how this translated into real life for women by looking at the four cardinal virtues of a True Woman reveals just how constraining this was for women as well as why some women bought into the system. However, even while the grounds for the two approaches, acceptance and rejection, are revealed, Welter illustrates how both of these approaches necessitated the shift in social thinking that shortly led to the idea of the New Woman and women’s liberation movement that blossomed in the mid-1900s.
Works Cited
Welter, Barbara. “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860.” American Quarterly. Vol. 18, N. 2, P. 1. 1966, pp. 151-74.