From The "Cult Of True Womanhood" To The "Vision Of New Womanhood"

In the1850s and60s, there emerged a lot of women writers and works in thehistory of American literature. These women writers’ works were very popular amongthe readers at that time. The sales of the works of the contemporary men writers werefar behind of the women’s. The American literary market was occupied by the womenwriters and their works. Some critics called this period “the American Women’sRenaissance”.The dominating ideology to define the boundaries of acceptable female behavioraimed at middle-class white women was the “cult of true womanhood”. BarbaraWelter, a feminist historian, termed the “cult of true womanhood” characterizing by“piety, purity, submission and domesticity”. The woman who possessed the fourfemale virtues could be called “true woman”.The ideology of “cult of true womanhood” restricted the activities of the womenin the domestic sphere and this ideal stressed women’s role as the moral example andthe religious and moral backbone of America. The women writers created many moralmodels conforming to “true woman” and then affected the moral self-shaping of thereaders.These feminist ethics imposed upon women by the patriarchal society causeddilemmas which could be seen in the women writers’ works. Thus the women writersexplored deeply feminist ethics, domestic ethics and social ethics. The representativefigures were Susan Warner, Fanny Fern, Harriet Beech Stowe and Louisa May Alcott.Exploration of the ethical issues of the four representative writers can be summarized in the following four aspects:The first level was represented by Warner, whose creations mainly focused onthe sufferings encountered in the dilemmas of women’s survival. Warner created theheroines conforming to “true woman” to tell the readers the survival strategies.Although Warner’s works included the substance of the messages of dissatisfactionand dissent, Warner emphasized on the women’s self-improve.The second level was represented by Fern, whose heroines suffered the loss oftheir husbands’ protection and economic sources however through their own effortthey finally broke through the traditional female roles as wives and mothers andobtained their new ethical identity: successful writers and smart businesswomen. Andthen they achieved economic independence, which was not easy for women at thattime. Fern takes a key step in exploring feminist ethics.The third level was represented by Stow, whose exploration viewpoint involvedthe most provocative issue of her day: race and slavery. Stow proposed the ideologyof “domestic feminism” and hoped for changing the subordinate position of womenand makes them the centre of the family and society. This ideology was an ethicalrevolution for her time.The fourth level was represented by Alcott, whose works included many heroinesconforming to the traditional moral standards and these heroines also had numeroussimilarities with “New Woman” appearing later. Her works also showed the equalrelationships in marriage. Through her works Alcott explored feminist ethics anddomestic ethics deeply.From Susan Warner to Louisa May Alcott, the works composed by these womenwriters formed a drama in which the heroines were gradually from passive acceptanceto active creation, from dependence to independence, from self-control toself-assertion and from self-sacrifice to self-realization. The heroines achieved thetransition from the “True Woman” conforming to the traditional moral standards tothe “New Woman” designing lives for themselves bravely.