Anne Bradstreet In The Cult Of True Womanhood

Before people can define scandalous women behaviors, they have to understand what was expected of American women. Women expectations were held at a higher standard than men. The women that defy the stereotypes for American women were seemed less valuable and punished by God for their behaviors. The main roles for women was to be religious, marry, take care of their children, and live by four virtues. The four virtues women were expected to live by were piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity. The ideal women who upheld and reinforced traditional American gender norms and expectations in American history were Anne Bradstreet, the Republican Mothers, and women like Catherine Beecher who followed the Cult of True Womanhood.

Anne Bradstreet

Women had to be religious because it was one of the first things that men looked for in a woman. Women needed religion because it did not take them away from the separate sphere. Purity was important because a woman was not considered a woman at all if she was not pure. They called women who lost their purity fallen angels. There were magazines for women that showed them how they should act and look in order to be a true woman. Submission was considered the most feminine virtue expected of women. “To suffer and to be silent under. Suffering seems the great command she has to obey.” This mean that if a woman was not submissive, she would be punished. The last one is domesticity. Domesticity was the most prized characteristic of an ideal woman. Mrs. S. E. Farley said, "the true dignity and beauty of the female character seem to consist in a right understanding and faithful and cheerful performance of social and family duties." Catherine Becher was one of the women that followed the Cult of True Womanhood. She helped spread the cult of true womanhood to people in her town. Catherine Becher advocated taking women's sphere to the classroom. She believed that it was their duty to teach their children and to be domestic.

In conclusion, these are the things that an ideal woman should be. Women had different roles than men and had to follow them. If women did not follow the rules for an ideal woman, they could be viewed as scandalous. Today, woman roles have changed so much from this time period. Woman and men now have various views about what they look for in a