Revolution can be regarded as an inevitable part of society’s evolution, whereas following the world’s revolutions one may observe a smooth transition of humanity from the early dawn of civilization to modern progressive and technological face of our planet. It’s necessary to point out that each revolution should be analyzed objectively, without disguising it someone’s favor; otherwise the true historical meaning of the even can be lost. The American Revolution started after Britain applied the seven Coercive (in other words Intolerable) Acts to the colonies, including the closing of the Boston port, and a permission to try British officials in England and not in the colonies. This and many other things contributed to the American respond in forming the Continental Congress and fighting in a war with the Great Britain. It all ended with the creation of the United States of America, a new country with republicanism being a guiding political philosophy. These changes had a lot to do with the rights of different groups of people, particularly with the women rights.
I won't have it thought that because we are the weaker sex as to bodily strength we are capable of nothing more than domestic concerns. They won't even allow us liberty of thought, and that is all I want.
Eliza Wilkinson of South Carolina, 1783.
These words describe very well what women wanted to perceive in the new government. A good thing is that the women’s role in the society was viewed differently since the Revolution, as all of the quiet household women became more active, and started fighting for their rights.
Because of the fact, that people in colonies came there from Europe, women were broadly taken to be lower in status than men before the American Revolution. This is well-represented with the lack of legal rights for the married women. Wives’ economical, political, and civic independence was not recognized by law in Anglo-American society.
Women were often blamed for having land, as it was unthinkable for man to imagine women owning land and property: that is why bizarre excuses were made to rid them of it, a process of this kind is well described in the “Examination and Testimony of Tituba, a Servant-Slave in Salem, Massachusetts, 1692”.
Document contains a brief introduction to it, and then a dialogue between Tituba, John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin, Assistants. Tituba was a West Indian slave, and she was officially charged for witchcraft by her neighbors, but in reality the cause was her owning property and not being single at the same time, which by men of those times was considered to be something very bad. Tituba was asked questions that were directed to make her guilty, and as a result she was charged for something she couldn’t possibly do.
Unfortunately, trials like this one were not uncommon in the colonial America. As it was stated previously, married women did not have very many laws protecting their rights, especially when it came to owning something.
Tituba’s case is only one of the many cases, when women (and not only slaves, but wealthy upper-class women as well) had to fight for the rights of owning property after their husband’s death, or under similar conditions, as long as they were not single.
That being a case, women really started thinking about what they actully wanted to have in the new country. Abigail Adams became an early advocate of women’s rights, even though she could not directly take part in the creation of the new government. The only thing she could do was to ask her husband, President John Adams, not to forget the Ladies, and be a bit kinder to them in the new Code of Laws, than their ancestors have been before.
John Adams answered, saying that if man give up their superiority on women, it would be a complete beginning of the despotism of the petticoat, which is not a good thing, and that they should rather concentrate of fighting ” against despotism, empire, monarchy, aristocracy, oligarchy, or ochlocracy.” This correspondence between the two of them clearly states, that the process of change begun, and the base has been created for it.
It is a good thing that men realized that for the Revolution to succeed all of the white men and women had to be equal in their rights and equally educated, which brings us to the Seneca Falls Convention, one of the most important meetings regarding women’s rights of those times.
It took place between July 19th and 20th in the year of 1848 at Seneca Falls, New York, and became best known for the demand on women’s right to vote, and for the Declaration of Sentiments, which was to provide equality between men and women, assuring women’s rights not being outclassed in any possible area of life, such as: politics, education, family, jobs, morals, and religion.
In the Declaration of Sentiments, it is stated that:
all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
It is also said, that even for this to be true, women and man have unfairly unequal rights, which is represented through the list of laws: women have to abide the laws they are not allowed to create, a married woman is considered to be almost dead civilly, and not allowed to own any type of property, even the wage she earns herself, women in marriage have to fully and completely obey to their husbands, as they become their masters, which itself deprives women of liberty.
In case of divorce all the possible power and decision-making process according the guardianship on the children, and even what the proper causes for divorce should be go into the hands of man, and no women’s opinion goes into the account.
Seneca Falls served as a firm base, for the organized movement for women’s rights in the United States of America. Convention, the brainchild of E. Cady, L. Mott, and other women participants who organized it, brought the wide national attention to the issue of women’s rights.
As has been mentioned, republicanism is the main political philosophy of the U.S., and at the very beginning it had to be taught to the new nation. As a woman was the main person in the house to look after kids, a term “republican motherhood” has been created.
It belongs to the XX century, and is used to name women’s roles in the United States before, during, and after the American Revolution. It was based on the idea, that the daughters of Patriots’ families should be raised and taught to confirm the ideas of republicanism, so they can forward them to the next generations.
Republican Mother was considered to be a guardian of the morality of her family. It is very hard to define whether this period was good or bad for feminism, as on the one side it created an idea of domestic women, who had no official rights or whatsoever to influence the life of their country, but had a right to teach to their kids what they were said to teach to them about this same country. On the other side, it still was an improvement on the way women were seen in the society, as they now had to become more educated, and were allowed to spread their trivial spheres of life.
As a final point, it is needed to be stated, that from all the things women have ever fought for, the right to be equal to man is the main one, because for some unknown reasons, they rarely were considered to be good enough to serve for the purposes men served for.
The events before and after the American revolution have helped to create a firm background for some of the major changes in the independence of women in the United States of America, as they have changed the idea itself on how women were viewed in the American society.
These entire events helped establishing a positive social environment in the present, whereas American woman represents a bright example to follow for those countries where women are still regarded as subordinate level of society.
Times are changing; still, revolutionary methods are still applied as an effective tool to establish new rules. It’s important that revolutionary approaches are focused on improving the world and making progress, not matter what aspect of humanity it deals with. As such, the idea of equality beyond the gender identity is an important step to the evolution of mind, human’s consciousness and overall perception of things.
Humanity still needs to overcome a number of problems, in fact, there’s still a huge gap between today’s world order and ideal society, which presupposes a great number of upcoming events which will help changing the human civilization for better.
Bibliography
Hoffman, E. C., Blum, E. J., Gjerde J., ed., Major Problems in American History, Vol. I: to 1877, third edition, pp. 76 – 77.
Hoffman, E. C., Blum, E. J., Gjerde J., ed., Major Problems in American History, Vol. I: to 1877, third edition, pp. 109 – 110.
Hoffman, E. C., Blum, E. J., Gjerde J., ed., Major Problems in American History, Vol. I: to 1877, third edition, pp. 305 – 307.
Independence Hall Association in Philadelphia, Revolutionary Changes and Limitations: Women. UShistory.org. http://www.ushistory.org/us/13e.asp (accessed March 14, 2016)
