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More handpicked essays just for you.
Social roles and expectations for women in america 1800s
Role of women in history
The role of woman in society in early america
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The women were essentially overworked and the children were needed with the extra chores. The male population was more superior than ever. Women's roles had depleted and as a result women could not represent themselves in court. However, the colonists thrived from the low death rate and the high birth rate throughout the
• 1. HOW DID PATTERNS OF FAMILY LIFE AND ATTITUDES’ TOWARD WOMEN DIFFER IN THE NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN COLONIES? In the southern colonies, women were greatly degraded; men were superior. Women were not able to work in the fields, etc., all of what they could do was to be a wife and maintain the home.
Women are founding structures of history, but when and where do they fall into play? Today we'll be talking about women and their impact in colonial society. Though women had an extremely strict role in these times, some defied this and influenced and expanded colonization. Statuses of colonial women were based off of their wealth, social status, and religion. Their lives and roles were decided by the following labels: Puritan women, wealthy European Colonial woman, unmarried woman or widowed women, Colonial Indentured woman, colonial slave women and Native American women who were lesser known.
Woman in colonial America were short in number and therefor highly valued. Living conditions for them were not great as well. There was no heat, no running water, they had no toilets, and lighting was dim. If they wanted to go somewhere it was rough because there were no roads. Living conditions were generally dirty and therefor sickness was a normal thing.
In the colonies marriage was a bit different than those in England. White women were reserved the same rights as free black women during this time. The legal presence of women did not exist while married. Men controlled everything by law. Women were under the man 's protection and controlled all the finances even if they belonged to the women.
The tasks that women and men share are complementary, for the leading goal to remain stability within a family. The colonial period endured vast traveling those women migrated and settled with their families in hopes to start a new life. A plethora of these women ranges from English, Salzburger, German, Scots, Africans and even Native Americans. Since the cultural of Native Americans in colonial period was overlooked, their role served an additional introduction of the colonial government. European colonists were shocked that Native American Indian women took on active roles within their families and community.
Women's issues suddenly became so prominent in American culture because things were changing. People were forming new opinions and women saw an opportunity. In the 1800's transcendentalism came into the picture. Transcendentalism was an intellectual movement led by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau (Henretta, G-13). They believed that they needed to examine individuality and self reliance closely.
During the colonial error, the Native American, and Colonial families were forced into marriage at an early age. The Native American families were small in size, they suffered a high child mortality rate, and their children were forced to start work at an early age. In all respects, the English women were sold to marriage. The father and husband were head of the household. The Colonial family worked together as a unit both socially and economically, as opposed to the families in the south, there family life differed.
While reading about American history the thing that I found most appealing was the limited rights that women had during this era. Although women gave the early settlers longer life expectancy and brought hope to their future, women still were not considered equal to a man. Women were discriminated against and didn’t play an important role in early American history. Generally, women had fewer legal rights and career opportunity than men because they were considered weak and not able to perform certain tasks. Different women came from different ethnic backgrounds and were all created equal in the eyes of men.
In colonial times women were expected to be married by the age of 20, and were often put into arranged marriages. Widowed women if wealthy could own their own businesses, buy their own land, and create their own wills. They could take the place of their deceased husband, and in one rare case a woman was even allowed to vote in place of her spouse. If the woman was widowed and was considered “middle class or poor” they often took on the jobs of servants and worked on farms and in houses to earn a living. It was uncommon to have a single woman, and many people deemed unmarried woman “unnatural and called (them) “spinsters” or “thornbacks”,” (landofthebrave.info).
In the Gilded Age, women morphed from domestic slaves to emergent clerical workers; however, the long-standing stigma about what was meant to be a true woman held back progressive thinkers. Women felt this oppression through societal structure, religious beliefs, and unequal treatment under law. By definition, the true woman was one that was an angel for domestic paradise. They cooked, cleaned, took care of the children, and were at their husband's beckon call every waking moment. In the emerging progressive age, the first modern feminists, called the new women, were the upper and middle class women who extended greater influence in politics, economy, and other life far beyond the domestic sphere.
A colonial wife had no legal rights but for single women or widows they could run their own business. They were normally married by the age of 13 or 14. They were treated as the inside caretakers.
In colonial America, women were viewed as being weak, incompetent, and inferior to men. The women in the colonial period had no rights, but they had many responsibilities as the homemaker of the family. The women of colonial America were expected to serve, respect, and obey their husbands, due to the males being the head of the household. Modern America is very different than colonial America in many aspects for the women of America. Additionally, the women of America have undergone many significant changes to their roles as women including work, marriage, and childbirth.
From the 16th to 18th century European women experienced some level of change in their roles and attitudes towards them. Ideas women were still considered inferior to men still lingered and progress of equal rights still progressed slowly. Around the time the Enlightenment rolled around women were beginning to get involved in the workforce and taking on a new, much bigger role in society. Some aspects of European women’s lives changed, starting in the Reformation, which saw their roles expand from being a husband’s concubine. Before the Reformation, many humanists and Professor Alberti stressed that a wife’s traditional role should be restricted to the orderliness of the household, food preparation, serving of meals, the education of children, and the supervision of servants.
Transcript of Women in Early American Literature The continuing shift on the representation of women embodies the changes that occur in American literature. Each period in the American history seemed parallel to showcase the degree of which acknowledgement and acceptance were given to portray the roles of women. Dating back in the16th century, Svoboda (2013) argues that writings in American literature contained little reference to women at all thus illustrates the harsh reality of society's treatment of women. Women in American literature before the 18th century were inexplicit and almost non-existent. The chief literary work that portrayed woman character was Cabeza de Vaca’s The Chronicle of the Narvaez Expedition that was written during