Culture- Role of Women

Women were mostly house wives. They wore themselves out with years of childbearing and the stresses of raising obedient, virtuous, and healthy children

Male dominance was prominent in the 1850s as well as the rest of the nineteenth century. Girls were trained at a young age to be docile and good. While boys were given the opportunity to be more daring. The men of the family controlled everything, while women were expected to be quiet, and submissive. Margaret Fuller, a feminist of the time described marriage as a form of slavery. She wrote "that is the very fault of marriage and of the present relation between the sexes, that the woman does belong to the man, instead of forming a whole with him" (Margaret Fuller)

portrait of women in the 1850s (xroads.virginia)