Republican motherhood
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
before, during, and after the American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
(c. 1760 to 1800). It centered on the belief that the patriots' daughters should be raised to uphold the ideals of republicanism
Republicanism in the United States
Republicanism is the political value system that has been a major part of American civic thought since the American Revolution. It stresses liberty and inalienable rights as central values, makes the people as a whole sovereign, supports activist government to promote the common good, rejects...
, in order to pass on Republican values to the next generation. Republican motherhood meant civic duty. Although it is an anachronism, the period of Republican Motherhood is hard to categorize in the history of Feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
. On the one hand, it reinforced the idea of a domestic women's sphere separate from the public world of men. On the other hand it encouraged the education of women and invested their "traditional" sphere with a dignity and importance that had been missing from previous conceptions of Women's work
Women's work
Women's work or woman's work is a term used particularly in the West to indicate work that is believed to be exclusively the domain of women and associates particular tasks with the female gender. It is particularly used with regards to work that a mother or wife will perform within a family and...
.
Republicanism and women's roles
With the growing emphasis being placed on republicanism, women were expected to help promote these values; they had a special role in raising the next generation. In Linda K. KerberLinda K. Kerber
Linda K. Kerber is an American historian. At the University of Iowa she is the May Brodbeck Professor in Liberal Arts & Sciences, and also Lecturer in the College of Law. She served as the president of the American Studies Association in 1988, the Organization of American Historians in 1996-97, and...
's article "The Republican Mother: Women and the Enlightenment - An American Perspective", she compared republican motherhood to the Spartan model of childhood, where children are raised to value patriotism and the sacrificing of their own needs for the greater good of the country. By doing so, the mothers would encourage their sons to pursue liberty and roles in the government, while their daughters would perpetuate the domestic sphere with the next generation. In addition, women were permitted to receive more of an education than they previously had been allowed. Abigail Adams
Abigail Adams
Abigail Adams was the wife of John Adams, who was the second President of the United States, and the mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth...
advocated women's education, as demonstrated in many of her letters to her husband, the president John Adams
John Adams
John Adams was an American lawyer, statesman, diplomat and political theorist. A leading champion of independence in 1776, he was the second President of the United States...
(see Abigail Adams
Abigail Adams
Abigail Adams was the wife of John Adams, who was the second President of the United States, and the mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth...
).
Religion
Many Christian ministers, such as the Reverend Thomas Bernard, actively promoted the ideals of republican motherhood. They believed this was the appropriate path for women, as opposed to the more public roles promoted by Mary WollstonecraftMary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft was an eighteenth-century British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book...
and her contemporaries. Traditionally, women had been viewed as morally inferior to men, especially in the areas of sexuality and religion. However, as the nineteenth century drew closer, many Protestant ministers and moralists argued that modesty and purity were inherent in women's natures, giving them a unique ability to promote Christian values with their children.
Education of women
By the early 1st century, towns and cities were all burned down making new opportunities not available for girls and women. Especially influential were the writings of Lydia Maria Child, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, and Lydia SigourneyLydia Sigourney
Lydia Huntley Sigourney , née Lydia Howard Huntley, was a popular American poet during the early and mid 19th century. She was commonly known as the "Sweet Singer of Hartford". Most of her works were published with just her married name Mrs. Sigourney.-Early life:Mrs...
, who developed the role of republican motherhood as a principle that united state and family by equating a successful republic with virtuous families. Women, as intimate and concerned observers of young children, were best suited to this role. By the 1840s, these New England writers became respected models and were advocates for improving education for females. Greater educational access included making once male-only subjects of classical education, such as mathematics and philosophy, integral to curricula at public and private schools for girls. The number of girls' academic schools in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic increased rapidly beginning in the mid-19th century. By the late 19th century, such schools were extending and reinforcing the tradition of women as educators and supervisors of American moral and ethical values.
History of republican motherhood
The term "republican motherhood" was not used in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries. It was first used in 1980 to describe the American ideal by the historian Linda K. KerberLinda K. Kerber
Linda K. Kerber is an American historian. At the University of Iowa she is the May Brodbeck Professor in Liberal Arts & Sciences, and also Lecturer in the College of Law. She served as the president of the American Studies Association in 1988, the Organization of American Historians in 1996-97, and...
, in her book Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America. The historian Jan Lewis subsequently expanded the concept in her article "The Republican Wife: Virtue and Seduction in the Early Republic," published in the William and Mary Quarterly (1987). The early seeds of the concept are found in the works of John Locke
John Locke
John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
, the notable eighteenth-century philosopher. In his First Treatise, he included women in social theory, and in his Second Treatise defined their roles more clearly. As Kerber quotes in her 1997 essay, Locke wrote: "[T]he first society was between man and wife, which gave beginning to that between parents and children... conjugal society is made by a voluntary compact between man and woman." In other words, contrary to the traditional sexual hierarchy promoted by his contemporary Robert Filmer
Robert Filmer
thumbnail|150px|right|Robert Filmer Sir Robert Filmer was an English political theorist who defended the divine right of kings...
and others, Locke believed that men and women had more equal roles in a marriage. Women were expected to focus on domestic issues, but Locke's treatises helped appreciation of the value of the domestic sphere. Although Locke argued less in support of women after he had dissected Filmore's writings, his treatises were influential in highlighting the role of women in society.
Long-term influence
Although the notion of republican motherhood initially encouraged women in their private roles, it eventually resulted in increased educational opportunities for American women, as typified by Mary LyonMary Lyon
Mary Mason Lyon , surname pronounced , was a pioneer in women's education. She established the Wheaton Female Seminary in Norton, Massachusetts, . Within two years, she raised $15,000 to build the Mount Holyoke School...
and the founding in 1837 of "Mount Holyoke Female Seminary", later Mount Holyoke College
Mount Holyoke College
Mount Holyoke College is a liberal arts college for women in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It was the first member of the Seven Sisters colleges, and served as a model for some of the others...
. The ideal produced women with initiative and independence; as Kerber says, it was "one side of an inherently paradoxical ideology of republican motherhood that legitimized political sophistication and activity." Educated Northern women became some of the strongest voices and organizers of the abolitionist movement, which blossomed in the 1830s and 1840s. Working on civil rights for enslaved people caused women to want more power for themselves, giving rise to the Seneca Falls Convention
Seneca Falls Convention
The Seneca Falls Convention was an early and influential women's rights convention held in Seneca Falls, New York, July 19–20, 1848. It was organized by local New York women upon the occasion of a visit by Boston-based Lucretia Mott, a Quaker famous for her speaking ability, a skill rarely...
of 1848, and the women's rights
Women's rights
Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...
movement in the United States. They worked for suffrage, property rights, legal status and child custody in family disputes. The movement likely owes a debt to the emphasis on republican motherhood of fifty years before.