Piety, purity, submission and domesticity – these were the four qualities that made up the predominant ethos of white, upper-middle class Britain and America in the nineteenth century. It was known as the Cult of Domesticity. Excuse me while I get a suturing kit to repair my sides, which have split from uproarious guffawing. Enraging as it is, there is nothing shocking about men assigning and defining the role of fifty percent of the population; it’s not as though men hadn’t ever had a – shall we say disparaging – view of womankind prior to that. In fact, I’m not sure much has changed.
Wait. Let me reliably inform the reader than I am, in fact, still wearing my bra, embrace high heeled shoes with rabid delight, and (gasp!) have been known to apply make-up to my face. Therefore, this post will not be a good ol’ fashioned Man Hatin’ Rally. But. But, but, but.
In the nineteenth century, the above-mentioned characteristics were seen as the ideal combination for a wife, a mother, a sister. It is no coincidence that the height of biblical study groups for women were at their absolute peak in the nineteenth century (outstripping America’s current evangelical zeal); religion was the tool handed down by the male-dominated Church to ensure women stayed passive and docile. By reducing a woman’s life to a series of Pious Acts (attending to the needs of the home and family, for example) and Sins (daring to question the patriarchal head of the family; wanting to vote, etc.), men had carte blanche to act as they pleased, feeding their succubus-like egos on the emotional servitude of their womenfolk.
Where is this post going, you may be asking yourself. Well. I have Been Thinking, and although the notion of these sorts of beliefs seem laughable on the surface in the digital glare of the twenty-first century, I am not entirely convinced that anything has changed. Our values are all skewed; we have a visceral reaction to a woman dressed in a short skirt, hair bleached white and neckline plunging (“Slut.”), but we make tracksuit bottoms with words like “Juicy” written across the bottom for six year-old girls. (People who buy tracksuit bottoms for outerwear should be rounded up and shot, Gestapo-style, but that is a diatribe for another day.)
And despite the seventies, the rallying cries that We’ve Come A Long Way, Baby!, we haven’t. Not really. In the midst of a divorce after years of faithful tending of the home-fires, I was vitriolically informed that, like, lately I had hardly even been cooking anything. And, for that matter, whilst he was at it, the house was sometimes messy, and he had to help give the children their baths. Basically, it seems as though if I’d been a little more subservient, pious, domestic and pure, maybe – just maybe – I’d have been able to keep my man.
It’s a little deflating. And a lot enraging. And certainly a lot to think about considering that Girl Baby has to inherit a core set of beliefs from me. How much submission is enough to not get restraining orders slapped against you, but how much is too much? Piety doesn’t come in to the mix because religion is for the weak in this house; how much domesticity is a skill (make no mistake – it IS a skill to be able to whip up a reliably nutritious meal out of lentils, one egg, a sprouting onion and a wrinkled pepper) – and how much a rod for one’s own back?
