Analysis of The Politics of Domesticity: Women, Evangelism and Temperance in
Nineteenth Century America by Barbara Epstein
Samuel Harmon
HIS 121
July 18, 2018
Mr. Croteau
Nineteenth century America was a time of transition for the economy, the home, the Church, and social life. Barbara Epstein goes over some details and motivation factors for some of these changes in The Politics of Domesticity: Women, Evangelism, and Temperance in Nineteenth Century America. Men and women were condition in schools and churches for certain ways of thinking. Churches allowed women to gather and discuss things they could not in a male dominant society. In schools, men were taught to take advantage of the capitalist economy and that if they did not succeed that they just didn’t try hard enough while, women were taught to be subordinate to men and malleable in order to support them1. Women banded together to form temperance unions where they sought not equality but a balance of morals that were asked for men and women. The society of 19th century New England was also condition for women only to stay at home. Women could either try to make it on their own and most likely encounter poverty or marry and be isolated by staying at home. Men could either seek financial prosperity by living on their own and making more than enough money to support more than enough money to support one person or marry which was socially respectable.
Women and men have obvious and subtle differences and similarities. In the Book of Books: The Radical Impact of the King James Bible, Melvyn Bragg speaks of supposed reasons of the differing reaction that women had to Calvinism in the 19th century and affords this to women’s claimed softness and ability to be molded into a way of thinking, that is Christianity or just the movement from Protestant to Calvinist theology2. Calvinism is most basically characterized by these five theologies: total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace and perseverance of the saints. The Politics of Domesticity uses an account of a minister who wrote to a man confronting his opposition to Calvinism3. This account names the man’s doubt in the sovereignty of God, that is the facet that God is omnipotent or over all. Men also did not accept other doctrines of Calvinism and wrestled with them according to the account. Women’s accounts held no such concepts. Generally, women experienced God more emotionally and intensely and, often times, lacked the questions that men had4. Women found that they held a hatred and objection to God and Christ, not a specific sin as men found5. Differing themes within conversions tended to reflect men being convicted of a particular sin and women being convicted of their overall sinfulness6. Congregations were said to be made up of two thirds women 19th century america. Melvyn Bragg affords women’s unique spiritual experiences to the fact that women were not intellectually entertained in other environments such as town councils or schools7. In Christian churches, women found a place that they could discuss topics that would be left untouched in a male dormant society8. Women’s dominant role in the Church in the 19th century was enough to changes women’s roles in the home and elsewhere but the still male dominant society of 19th century America was furthermore a restricting factor. Women’s changing role within the society was also a factor for the increasing female presence within the church. Barbara accounts for diverging spiritual accounts recorded of conversions from the 19th century Americans. She presents that fact that both men and women did very different things throughout the day, even if they lived in the same house. Commercial capitalism appeared to be attempting to attack women’s domestic activities while it forced men to separate their morals and their self interest9. Barbara Epstein discusses the effect of the shared hostility women and men had for the opposite sex with respect to the home environment, she also speaks of how calvinism encourages women’s submission to male authority and therefore justified the cultural norm of subordination within a marriage10. Women have been consistently more scrutinized, whether it was because of their choice of clothing or the question of their involvement in society.
Women’s role in the home. In the 1820’s, Charles Grandison Finney was a pastor in New York in the 19th century and preached controversially opposing slavery and encouraging women’s involvement within education and religion as well11. The role of women within the home was being re-evaluated. Men’s individual achievements were used to assess individual worth, while women were confined to domesticity12. It was here, in 19th century American that authors penned the notion that as an American if you tried hard enough, anyone could make it13. This draws a stark contradiction with the view that women should maintain their domestic position. The common mindset at the time would most likely completely disregard the thought that women would be included in this notion. Women were still fighting for the right to vote, let alone equality with men. Men were encouraged to marry, despite its obvious financial disadvantages, for the sake of its social and emotional advantages. Marriage was socially respectable regardless of its financial disadvantages. The market economy threatened the social accomodations to marriage. Despicable poverty was fled from with such a passion that remaining a bachelor needed to be actively deterred14. Stories of needing only hard work, achievement and virtue were rampant15. Though, a contempt for the poor and a hatred for the rich was also present in the stories16. Riches were assumed to be attained by bearish and greedy qualities17. These books appeared to encourage success and to tell those who are not successful that is is their own fault18. Women were told the same stories, and were led to become male dependent and malleable for the sake of their future husband19. Individually women would be very ill-equipped to sustain themselves based on what schools were teaching them. According to schools, women’s roles in society were entirely dependent on their husbands. Women’s options of the 19th century were to support yourself and live in poverty or to marry and be isolated from society20. Under their husbands women, had practically no rights. Women could not sign contracts, money that was brought into the marriage would be the man’s21. Later in the 19th century progress was being made for women’s rights to hold property. The society in which men worked outside of them home called for women to remain at home and oversee domestic activities. Women did not have the option to send their children to daycare or preschool in the 19th century. Women shared a unique ability to impact societies through the impact they left on their sons22. This is a possible reason for the women's’ suffrage movement in the later part of the century. Elizabeth Cady Stanton gave the face of women’s suffrage a new face. She broke the stereotypes that feminist rights activists were single, mannish and mean23. This new, relatable and amiable, face gave women new courage to stand up for what they want. Stanton blurred the lines between the thought that women need to be subordinate their husbands and their involvement within politics. She unwaveringly pushed governments, casting ballots before she actually had the right to, as a woman.
The Women’s Christian Temperance Union, or WCTU held social reform and temperance in a very similar light24. The WCTU believed that the two were very closely related25. In its early conception, the WCTU struggle with whether it should only endorse abstinence with persuasion or should it enter politics to manifest temperance26. The WCTU claimed that women were the people most affected by the “rum curse” and because of that, they should be able to fix the problem alcohol introduces. The main agenda of the WCTU was social purity, rather than women’s suffrage, which was said to be too controversial27. Willard, a President of the WCTU also sought to rectify the “balance between men and women as valuable for its own sake” rather than establish equality between the sexes28. The WCTU worked to enhance women’s moral authority within the home, women wanted to be able to protect themselves from desertion, abuse and venereal disease often transmitted from husband to wife after the husband sleeps with a prostitute29. Women’s lack of authority within the home is quite unfortunate, considering their spiritual intensity and emotional capabilities. Homes could have flourished if women’s spiritual intensity was utilized in the development of the family. Unfortunately, women needed to convince society that they needed a voice before they could convince their husband. Speculatively, the WCTU could have failed because of the sheer presence of men within the people that the WCTU had to persuade in order to attain any power. If the women could not even convince the men in their homes that they deserved more authority, they surely could not convince the men in their social and political environment that they needed more authority.The WCTU was said to be the most influential women’s group of the 19th century30. The WCTU pushed for women’s suffrage but the more involved big alcohol companies became in politics, that harder it was for the WCTU to push its agenda31.
In The Politics of Domesticity, Barbara Epstein does a fine job contrasting men and women’s roles based off of not only their spiritual accounts but, school books, letters from pastors and other resources. Barbara could have further strengthened her history on women’s temperance with some accounts of how women interacted with the temperance movement outside of the WCTU, and more closely discussed how men looked at the temperance movement of the 19th century. Barbara visits the cycle of rebellion and submission of women on several accounts, overall to men’s authority in their lives. Barbara gives a clear account for why women had strikingly different reactions to the Gospel or Calvinism, and the effect society has had on the within the home. Women were raised to be subordinate to their fathers and husbands and were already conditioned to submit, which is possibly why Calvinism sat so well with women and not so with men.
Bibliography
Blair, Karen J. The New England Quarterly 54, no. 3 (1981): 456-58. doi:10.2307/365487.
Bragg, Melvyn. The Book of Books: The Radical Impact of the King James Bible, 1611-2011.
Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2012.
Epstein, Barbara Leslie. The Politics of Domesticity: Women, Evangelism, and Temperance in
Nineteenth-century America. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1986.
History.com Staff. "Woman's Christian Temperance Union." History.com. 2010. Accessed July
18, 2018.
https://www.history.com/topics/womens-history/womans-christian-temperance-union.
Wineapple, Brenda. Ecstatic Nation: Confidence, Crisis, and Compromise, 1848-1877. New
York: Harper Perennial, 2014.
Citations
1. Barbara Epstein. The Politics of Domesticity: Women, Evangelism, and Temperance in Nineteenth-century America. (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press), 72-75.
2. Melvyn Bragg. The Book of Books: The Radical Impact of the King James Bible. (Berkeley: Counterpoint), 310.
3. Epstein, 49.
4. Epstein, 55.
5. Epstein, 56.
6. Epstein, 51.
7. Bragg, 311.
8. Epstein, 65.
9. Epstein, 62.
10. Epstein, 63.
11. Brenda Wineapple. Ecstatic Nation: Confidence, Crisis, and Compromise, 1848-1877. (New
12. Epstein, 67.
13. Epstein, 69.
14. Epstein, 70.
15. Epstein, 71.
16. Epstein, 71.
17. Epstein, 71.
18. Epstein, 72.
19. Epstein, 74.
20. Epstein, 75.
21. Epstein, 79.
22. Epstein, 82.
23. Wineapple, 450.
24. Epstein, 117.
25. Epstein, 117.
26. Epstein, 117.
27. Epstein, 147-148.
28. Epstein, 147.
29. Epstein, 148.
30. History.com Staff. "Woman's Christian Temperance Union." History.com. 2010. Accessed July
31. History.com Staff.