This lesson is divided into two parts, both accessible below, and includes close reading questions and an optional followup assignment. Use the Follow-Up Assignment to explore the factors with your students. Harriet Jacobs offers a particularly astute use of pious, “domestic” language operating in stark contrast to other statements where she adopts a much more strident emphasis that can be compared to Mrs. The stories of Fanny Fern and Harriet Beecher Stowe demonstrate differences in how men and women use language and also some interesting patterns in how they shift ground in dialogue with one another.
“How Husbands May Rule” and “Peculiar Responsibilities of American Women” stress what women gain by acquiescing to men’s authority. One theme to note is the emphasis on the kinds of trade-off that take place within this cult, meaning that women might very well willingly choose to accept the “rule” of wise husbands and political leaders in return for security, material comfort, and protection. While the four passages have other features in common, they also voice distinctive, even opposing views. In each of the passages presented here, at least two of the four principles of the cult of domesticity (piety, purity, submissiveness, domesticity) are illustrated, either positively or negatively, and these illustrations can be compared and contrasted.
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