Women in the 19th-century held a specific role in society. Historians often refer to a woman's place during this time as the "cult of domesticity" or the "cult of true womanhood". The idea being that women were innately meant to be domesticated, that is---to stay at home and tend to the house and the children.
The Civil War would come at a time where more women began to challenge the roles given to them and push back against the war waged on their individuality aside from men. They would began to create their own definitions of "true womanhood".
Hostage of the home - Barbara Relters (historian)
The "cult of true womanhood" developed in tandem with industrialization, the Market Revolution and the Second Great Awakening. It set a series of expectations of what women were meant to do, meant to be and how they should act. From early ages women were taught how to cook, clean, raise children and be subservient. They were often confined to their homes and sometimes limited to household familial interactions. This way they were safe from public affairs, political turmoil or hard labor. So what's the big fuss? Besides, it gave married women greater authority to shape their home life. They directed their households and exerted a serene moral influence over their husbands and children. Women's roles of guardians of moral virtue applied to address all forms of social issues that they felt contributed to the moral decline of society.
Paradoxes of the cult of true womanhood
There were clear limitations; men gained legal control over their wives' property, and women with children had no legal rights over their offspring. It limited opportunities outside of the domestic sphere and seemed to divide the world into the public space of work and politics and the domestic space of leisure and morality. It also took away the voice of the women and spoke for them. Who did they want to be? What did they want? And as far as 'protecting' women from the workforce? Well that was a luxury that not everyone could afford. This "cult of domesticity" did not protect everyone, surely it had no reach for the millions of enslaved African American women from the extensive and extrenous labor they endured as the demand for cotton increased and the economy became industrialized. Neither did it save the poor.
Being a woman never saved African Americans from hard labor, torture and cruelty. Expected to be laborious and loyal to their owners no matter what, many enslaved women had to work twice as hard as their husbands/partners were fighting in the war and could neither provide for nor protect them. Being a woman didn't save the poor from hunger and force her and her children into the workforce. Women of color and poor women were excluded from "true womanhood" and were not shielded by a life of domesticity. In fact, the labor of these aforementioned women often was to produce commodities and services for the perfectly domestic household. It was at the expense of these women that many Southern women from prosperous households successfuly embodied "true womanhood" (Laura Edwards). Every woman could not devote their entire life to their husbands and children in accordance to the ideal of "true womanhood". So were the 'less fortunate' not "true women"?
True womanhood
A womans' place is in the house. And the Senate.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with defining yourself as a mother and a wife, but that does not mean that every woman should be limited to those two roles only. And there should be no shame on a woman who decides to stay within the home to cook, clean and raise children---IF it is she who decides. A "true" woman is whatever she wants to be. A woman's "proper place" is whereever she decides to stand---whether it be the house or the Senate.
The war as her weapon
The Civil War was not just the Union versus the Confederate, but everyone versus women. They were on the prowl for justice of several magnitudes. It would be a time in which women advanced their normal position. These women managed to not only serve on behalf of the Union/Confederate cause, but their own. The war had become an opportunity for women to gain control of their own lives, seek independence and to raise hell (in more ways than one). Some women grew tired of complacency with the roles they'd filled before the war and their lives would never be the same when the war had gone. While the men were away, their jobs were abandoned ---leaving occupancies behind that women quickly began to assume (History.com+A&E Televison). The ladies had become involved in the storefronts, offices and business affairs. Other women traveled alongside the men and served as nurses, soldiers, and wartime spies---positions so often regarded as a man's job ("A Call to the Hospital"). Women organized aid societies supplying Union and Confederate troops with everything from food to clean uniforms. They were there in anyway they were needed. They faced a host of new duties which opened them up to what the world had to offer outside their homes. Women began to question.
You lose some, you win something
War also meant death on the battlefield. The death of their husbands meant widowhood for women. Widows had a distinct experience in the conflict in that, on the one hand, the loss could shatter households, financially and emotionally. On the contrary, it meant a new type of liberation. A tragic circumstance simulatenously had the power to free women from lives they'd never wanted and husbands they'd never worshipped. The death of their husbands also meant the birth of fiscal, psychological and emotional independence (AmericanYawp).
The fight is far from over
The war forced a condition of affairs which gave several opportunities to women, but this change came gradually. This change only came because of the increased necessities of production associated with wartime. And this change did not reach every woman. There were still challenges to be faced and progress to be made.
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