Contrasting Ideals: Women's Lives in Slavery vs. Freedom

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In her autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs disguised herself as Linda Brent. Throughout the book, she took readers for a ride through her life as an enslaved African-American woman. As slavery was prominent in the south, it can be concluded that society in the southern states was different than that of the northern states. Not only did society differ, but ideals and morals of women contrasted each other in the two dimensions. The ideals women in the northern states tried to live up to were to be pious, pure, submissive, and domestic. Jacobs’s (also referred to as Linda) story explains why women in the south could not live up to these ideals and be a “true woman”. Slavery prevented Linda from fulfilling the …show more content…

In the north, “woman must preserve her virtue until marriage and marriage was necessary for her happiness” (Welter, 158). Despite her efforts, Linda was not permitted to marry. Jacobs wrote about how her lover proposed to her, but it was against the law. In order for them to marry, Linda needed to become a free woman. Her lover offered to pay Dr. Flint, but he refused. Jacobs revealed a common opinion among the southern mistresses, “my mistress, like many others, seemed to think that slaves had no right to any family ties of their own; that they were created merely to wait upon the family of the mistress” (Jacobs, 34). Because of this belief, enslaved women were not given the permissions to fulfill the northern virtue of submission. Without a husband, a woman had no one to “respect” other than her master or mistress. Another way to examine the ideal of submission is – “a woman should only occupy herself with domestic affairs – wait till your husband confides to you those of a high importance – and do not give your advice until he asks for it” (Welter, 161). A woman that held this virtue would be obedient and would not offer her opinion or stand up for herself. Linda did not uphold this ideal because there were many instances in Incidents that Linda did not submit to her master; when she talked back to him, when she would not read his letters, or when she would not go to him when she was called for are examples of her

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