American history

The Cult of True Womanhood

During the 1830s and 1840s, many of the changes in the status of women that occurred in the post-Revolutionary period – such as the belief in love between spouses and the role of women in the home – continued at an accelerated pace.

This was an age of reform movements, in which Americans sought to improve the moral fiber of themselves and of their nation in unprecedented numbers.

The wife's role in this process was important because she was seen as the cultivator of morality in her husband and children. Besides domesticity, women were also expected to be pious, pure, and submissive to men.

These four components were considered by many at the time to be "the natural state" of womanhood, echoes of this ideology still existing today. The view that the wife should find fulfillment in these values is called the Cult of True Womanhood or the Cult of Domesticity.