1. How did the 19th century family differ from the pre-industrial family?

In the 19th century, men worked in jobs that produced goods and services
while their wives stayed at home with their children. Men who went to work were
known to support their families fiercely doing everything possible to succeed while
women who housekeep are known to be weak and delicate unlike men. Kin and community
were not that important as they have been due to the new ideal, "cult of
domesticity", which redefines women's duty and role.

2. Summarize each of the four characteristics of the ideal American woman.

Women were to have piety, a particular propensity for religion, because
without religion, they will be considered the most revolting human characteristic
who is godless, no woman, and no mother.

Women were to have purity, being sexually pure or without sex until marriage.
To be sexually pure, they always must defend themselves from being exposed to sex
including rape. In other cases, they also cover everything, like furnitures, that
represent legs and not have any such implicit talk about sex like as "breast meat".

Women were to be submissive, inferior, passive, dependent, and obedient.

Women are unlike men who are the doers, one who does or take actions in life.

Women were to be domestic, in her place in the home. A woman's role is to be

busy in her home doing housework such as childcare and chores, and maintaining her
piety and purity.

3. What roles and values were women expected to uphold?

Women are expected to uphold the roles of making a refuge, home, for men or
their husband. They are also to uphold the values of stability, morality, and
democracy.

4. Overall, why do you think the Cult of Domesticity was developed? What role did
it play in the development of 19th-century America?
The Cult of Domesticity developed due to the lost of a family's function as
economic unit. The rising of a market economy where men were able to make a living
other than farming, where women's work were devaluated, changed the functioning of
the family unit. The standard of the middle class allowed just men to go to work by
leaving the house, being able to make enough money to support his family. Women did
not needed to work, thus their role is to housekeep at home, while their husband's
role to is to support his family by going to work.

5. In what ways do you think the Cult was consistent with the U.S. Constitution,
and in what ways do you think the Cult was contrary to the Constitution?
The Cult was consistent with the U.S. Constitution because the U.S.
Constitution was ordained and established by men. Women did not participate in the
conventions that framed and ratified the Constitution. The Cult was contrary to the
Constitution because it told women to submit, while it told men that they did not
submit. However, the constitution gave men many important laws that they had to
submit. These laws were decided by men, meaning that men submitted to other men,
which is something the Cult did not allow them to do.