Republican motherhood

James Peale, The Artist and His Family, (1795)

"Republican Motherhood" identifies the concept related to women's roles as mothers in the emerging United States before and after the American Revolution (c. 1760 to 1800). It centered around the belief that children should be raised to uphold the ideals of republicanism, making them the perfect citizens of the new nation.

Republicanism and Women's Roles

With the growing emphasis being placed on republicanism, women were expected to partake in promoting these values - they had a "special role to play" in raising their children. In Linda K. Kerber's article "The Republican Mother: Women and the Enlightenment - An American Perspective", she compared republican motherhood to the Spartan model of childhood - children are raised to 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.

Many Christian ministers, such as the Reverend Thomas Bernard, actively supported the ideals of republican motherhood. They felt that this was the image women should follow, as opposed to the more public roles promoted by Mary Wollstonecraft 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 ministers (especially Protestants) and moralists began to believe that "modesty and purity were inherent in women's nature," giving them a unique ability to promote Christian values with their children.

History of Republican Motherhood

The term "republican motherhood" did not explicitly appear in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries. It was first used as a description in 1980 by historian Linda K. Kerber in her book Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America. 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). However, its early seeds were found in the works of John Locke, the famous eighteenth-century philosopher. In his First Treatise, he included women into social theory, but it wasn't until his Second Treatise where he defined women's roles more clearly. As Kerber quoted in her essay "the 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 women." In other words, contrary to the traditional sexual hierarchy promoted by Robert Filmer and others, men and women had more equal roles in a marriage. Women were still expected to focus on domestic issues, but the value of the domestic sphere was much higher after Locke's treatises. Although Locke's arguments in support of women diminished after he had dissected Filmore's writings, the seeds he had planted had a much greater impact on the role of women in society.

Long-Term Impact

The idea of republican motherhood resulted in increased educational opportunities for American women, as typified by Mary Lyon and the founding in 1837 of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary which would later become Mount Holyoke College. It produced an initiative and independence that, Kerber says, was "one side of an inherently paradoxical ideology of republican motherhood that legitimized political sophistication and activity." The abolitionist movement, which blossomed in the 1830s and 1840s, found many of its strongest and most dedicated voices in educated Northern women. The Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, which began the Women's Rights movement in the United States, also likely owes some of its origin to the emphasis on republican motherhood of fifty years before.

Equality or Inequality?

Historians are divided on the question of whether republican motherhood implied that women were on a path towards political equality at the founding of the United States, or whether it signified a new but subservient role for women in the new republic. The idea of a mother as a key force in the preservation and advancement of democracy can be seen as elevating women to status as politically vital citizens, but it can equally be seen as a reinforcement of traditional women's roles (merely focusing more on republican ideals in the education taking place in the home).

Bibliography

• Boydston, Jeanne. Home and Work: Housework, Wages, and the Ideology of Labor in the Early Republic. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
• Boylan, Anne M. The Origins of Women's Activism: New York and Boston, 1797-1840. Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
• Henretta, James A., David Brody, Lynn Dumenil, and Susan Ware. America's History: To 1877. Vol. 1. Boston and New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004.
• Kerber, Linda K. Intellectual History of Women: Essays by Linda K. Kerber. Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997.
• Kerber, Linda K. Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America. Chapel Hill and London: THe University of North Carolina Press, 1980.
• Kleinberg, S J. Women in the United States, 1830-1945 New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999.
• Norton, Mary Beth. Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996.