Cult of Domesticity

Abstract

Abstract As the family economic unit shifted from being a site of production to one of consumption in the nineteenth century, a new gender ideology emerged to sanction the separation of public and private spaces. The cult of domesticity reflected the restructuring of the home as a private, feminine sphere and work as a public, masculine sphere. The middle‐class white women who adhered to the cult of domesticity self‐consciously embraced the idea of true womanhood and its virtues of piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity.