The Origins of Republican Womanhood
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In 1980, Linda Kerber coined the phrase, “Republican Motherhood” and argued that a transformation in women’s education took place because of the American Revolutionary War. After the war ended, principles of republicanism increased in importance and women began to be seen as crucial to the success of the new Republic. Kerber claimed that republican political theory asserted that women’s most essential role within the new nation was motherhood. As mothers living in a new America, women were expected to raise their sons on republican values and thus, ensure the country future virtuous and patriotic male citizens. Kerber’s basis for the emphasis on motherhood derives mostly from her examination of Benjamin Rush’s essays on female education, as well as lectures on education given at the Young Ladies’ Academy in Philadelphia. Nevertheless, further analysis of these sources reveals that motherhood was not the only role believed to be significant for the shaping of a new government. Historians such as, Ruth Bloch, Mary Beth Norton, and Jan Lewis expanded Kerber’s argument and reasoned that the role of the wife in addition to the role of the mother was considered to be equally as important to the new nation. Therefore, the new political responsibility women experienced because of the Republic should be modified from the original phrase, “Republican Motherhood” to a new phrase, “Republican Womanhood.” However, this is not the only issue in Kerber’s argument which historians have critiqued. Despite the fact that Kerber argues that “Republican Motherhood” was born out of the American Revolution, a re-evaluation of Western political theory in the years before the war prove otherwise. Republican Womanhood may owe its success to the war, but its origins stretch back long before independence was declared from Britain. In her book, Women of the Republic: Intellect & Ideology in Revolutionary America, Kerber states that before the American War of Independence women lacked complete political identification. She argues: “As American women entered the Revolution, they had few theoretical analyses of their place in society on which they might draw for sustenance. There was no dearth of argument telling them that they were peripheral to the world of politics and decision making.”1 Furthermore, Kerber claims that women were left out of Enlightenment ideology. Great intellectual figures such as John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau left little room in their discussions on intellect for contemplating the role of women according to Kerber, and when they did consider women’s role within society, they understood it as exclusively domestic—domestic in the sense, that women’s sole purpose in society was to oversee matters pertaining to the household.2 In Kerber’s research, prewar republican ideology combined with Enlightenment philosophy failed to recognize women as intellectual and political entities. Kerber draws her conclusion that before the American Revolutionary War women lacked direction in anything but matters of the home from her analysis of Enlightenment ideology. However, other historians give examples that suggest women’s contribution to society was indeed a topic open up for debate before the American Revolutionary War. For instance, Mary Beth Norton in her essay, “The Evolution of White Women’s Experience in Early America,” describes how the family was central to colonial life. She states: “Just as in the early years of settlement, the family was regarded as the primary mainstay of social order,
aegis 2007
Shannon Bauchett
