The Cult Of Womanhood Analysis

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Recommended: Slavery in the 19th century

During the Nineteenth Century slavery was widely used in the United States, differences between the North and the South were at a time of mass distinction. In Harriet Ann Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, she gives a detailed account of her trials and tribulations growing up in the South as a slave. Though Jacobs sometimes spared her readers of the gruesome, harsh, and despicable acts she witnessed and experienced through her life, this does not in the slightest soften the image of slavery given in the book. Throughout the text, Jacobs employs “the cult of true womanhood” in her many descriptions of the expectations of women during that time. She wrote of her experiences with the demon of slavery from the time she was a young child until she was in her thirties. The notion that …show more content…

In a sense, women were placed on a pedestal and these so-called “proper roles” were assigned to them. Within these values were the four cardinal virtues: piety, purity, domesticity, and submissiveness. Welters even stated(expressed), “Without them, no matter whether there was fame, achievement, or wealth, all was ashes.” This powerful statement emphasized how vital these were to women, including the judgment and ostracism that came to the women who did not have these values. The cult of true womanhood also carried with the ideology of Separate Spheres, which is the belief that men and women belong in separate and essentially/virtually opposite spheres. These spheres differ in many aspects including but not limited to: duties, personal characteristics, functions and spheres of activity involving daily life. This ideology glorified women’s domestic activities at the same time it defined women as unfit for economic competition or political participation due to their pure moral

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