Song Character Analysis Worksheet - The University of North ...
Song Character Analysis Worksheet - The University of North ...
Song Character Analysis Worksheet - The University of North ...
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home to the haven <strong>of</strong> comfort provided by his companion wife. 8 Woman’s sphere was<br />
the intimate world <strong>of</strong> the home, commonly referred to as the “cult <strong>of</strong> domesticity.” 9 This<br />
was a relatively new concept formulated in the Victorian period as middle class affluence<br />
took husbands out <strong>of</strong> the family workshop and into the urban workplace. Woman’s work,<br />
according to Christopher Lasch, was to specialize in rearing children and to provide<br />
moral values and emotional solace for the family. 10<br />
During the late nineteenth century, modern conveniences relieved mothers from<br />
the traditional toils <strong>of</strong> harvesting and preparing food, and doing housework. <strong>The</strong> makers<br />
<strong>of</strong> these conveniences may have intended to simplify a woman’s day and allow her more<br />
time to care for her children, but that was not the reality. As many women had to replace<br />
their live-in domestic help with machines, the homemaker actually had less help than<br />
before. This dilemma was compounded in the 1890s as urban families deliberately<br />
decreased their number <strong>of</strong> children. Since large families were no longer essential for<br />
farm work, there was less help from the children as well. 11 Bearing and rearing fewer<br />
8 <strong>The</strong> mid-nineteenth century was also the first era <strong>of</strong> marriages without parental consent or<br />
planning. Christopher Lasch described this new state <strong>of</strong> marriage as “a union <strong>of</strong> individuals rather than a<br />
union <strong>of</strong> two lineages.” Companionship and love became the new goals <strong>of</strong> legal unions instead <strong>of</strong> family<br />
dynasties. “Life in the <strong>The</strong>rapeutic State” in Women and the Common Life: Love, Marriage, and<br />
Feminism, ed. Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1997), 162.<br />
9 Elizabeth Pleck labels it the “empire <strong>of</strong> the mother” in “Family History: Gender Roles and<br />
Relations,” Encyclopedia <strong>of</strong> American Social History, vol. 3 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1993),<br />
1950. Lasch describes this “cult” as revolving around a “new glorification <strong>of</strong> motherhood,” 95.<br />
10 Lasch, 162.<br />
11 Kerber and DeHart cite statistics that support the fact that “modern conveniences” actually<br />
lengthened the woman’s workday, especially if she was also forced to work outside <strong>of</strong> the home.<br />
“Gender,” 483. This era was also the beginning <strong>of</strong> a social hygiene that required more frequent bathing and<br />
laundry, thus compounding housework. Lasch refutes the all-consuming time constraints <strong>of</strong> housework by<br />
describing the barter economy <strong>of</strong> unpaid services based on the good will <strong>of</strong> extended family and friends in<br />
the urban neighborhood. In his view, this system worked well until after World War II when the housewife<br />
was completely on her own in the isolation <strong>of</strong> the suburbs. “<strong>The</strong> Sexual Division <strong>of</strong> Labor” in Women and<br />
37