What room is left for women when the men come home from war? The question is asked after every conflict. The American Revolution was no exception. Women had run households, farms and businesses. They had raised and educated children on their own. They had led communities, got involved in political debate, occasionally picked up a musket or a canon. Some had agitated for the right to vote; a few had even had it, briefly, in New Jersey.
Now the men were coming back, and their wives were expected to hand over the reins. Most did so gladly, but they were not left unchanged. American women, like most Americans, had grown patriotic and political. They wanted a role in their new nation, and their new nation needed them. It bestowed on them a mission – we call it republican motherhood.
The term – from the small-r-republic, not the Republican party – is from the 20th century, but the concept was solidified in the 1790s. After the short-lived women's rights movement of the early part of the decade, which centred on the French Revolution (see the previous newsletter and episode), the United States needed a less radical answer to women's politicisation. The idea was to give women a valuable civic role that acknowledged their citizenship but stopped short of the franchise. That role was to raise good little patriots.
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With republican motherhood, for the first time mothers were responsible for the moral and civic upbringing of American children. It used to be a father's job – women's brains were literally thought to be too small for the task. And the task was vital. The United States was a new and fragile nation; it needed the next generation to care enough to lay down their lives for it, if necessary. American women had proven their civic devotion and can-do during the Revolution, and nécessité oblige, were trusted with the mission. It encouraged girls' education – future mothers had to get the knowledge somewhere – and envisaged women as more equal intellectual partners in a companion marriage, the newish idea that marriage wasn't just a social contract and should be based on love and compatibility.
What republican motherhood did not do is bring women out into the public sphere. It shut them out of political institutions entirely and pushed back the idea of the franchise until the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848. Republican motherhood strictly maintained the differentiation of the sexes and the domesticity of women. It enshrined the notion of separate spheres – that women did not need to formally participate in politics or business because their power was exercised elsewhere, through influence in the home. In fact, by elevating domesticity and motherhood to the level of a sacred duty both to God and the new nation, it made making other political demands harder. Why would you want the right to vote, to legal autonomy or to work outside the home when you already have the most important job in the country? Isn't that selfish?
Republican motherhood ennobled a particular kind of femininity that did not challenge the patriarchy. It still threw political women a bone, though, by acknowledging the civic importance of mothering. As America's future became more certain, republican motherhood faded and women's domesticity in the later 19th century was stripped of that civic component. The ideal woman became the "angel in the house", submissive to her husband and selflessly devoted to her children, the moral centre of the family but not of nation-building. What was left for the granddaughters of republican mothers then but to demand the suffrage again?
I do not need to spell out for you – you're a clever bunch – all the parallels with contemporary politics in the United States, where separate sphere theory and male-only suffrage are having a moment. That's why we should know our history...
Like republican motherhood? Try imperial motherhood
My friend Jay Singleton has a fantastic podcast I want to recommend to you, called Wrong Side of History, on which he tries to understand history's bad guys the way they understood themselves. Season 1 is "chef's kiss" for this audience – it's about the American women who opposed women's right to vote. A majority of women back then by the way. Episode 2 is a crystal clear explanation of republican motherhood. And Jay just released a bonus episode comparing American republican motherhood to its British equivalent, imperial motherhood. Just add more colonialism and give it a good stir.
In all seriousness, Jay is a splendid explainer of difficult history and you should absolutely follow his pod. I can't wait for next season. He's also got a membership programme if you want to support his work.
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