The Limits of the Mother at Home in The Wide, Wide World and The Lamplighter

Abstract

By middle of nineteenth century, domesticity had gained a position of prominence, if not dominance, in American culture; this discourse of home, family, and private life influenced everything from home design social reform movements. (1) A primary feature of this ideology concerned mother's role as child nurturer and educator, a role for which women were supposed be divinely intended and biologically designed. As historian Mary Ryan has observed, the feminization of child-rearing, in literature and in practice, dovetailed neatly with gender system enshrined in cult of domesticity. The true woman was perfect candidate for role of child nurturer. She was loving, giving, moral, pure, and consigned hearth. (2) Much mid-nineteenth-century domestic literature, in form of advice manuals, articles in ladies' magazines, and published sermons, reiterated and reinforced this message through reverent portrayals of mother as tutelary seraph, a home-bound figure who instills virtue and religion in her children through medium of her matchless love. (3) In his popular guide for parents, Fireside Education (1838), Samuel Goodrich describes infant's early impressions of its mother, a ministering spirit who supplies all its inchoate needs: If cold, [she] brings it warmth; if hungry, she feeds it; if in pain, she relieves it; if happy, she caresses it ... The mother is DEITY OF INFANCY! (4) AS child matures, though, it begins require more than food, warmth, and affection. Now, according Goodrich, father steps in: Hitherto, [the child] has been a creature of feeling; it now becomes a being of thought. The intellectual eye opens upon world.... Curiosity is alive, and questions come thick and fast lisping lips ... At this period, child usually becomes fond of society of his father. He can answer his questions. He can unfold mysteries which excite wonder of childish intellect. (15) This description typifies view taken by many didactic writers who focus on mother's role as child educator. In these texts, maternal instruction appears as an instinctive, spontaneous reaction rather than a reasoned, deliberate choice (a competency reserved for fathers). Indeed, as a writer for The Mother's Magazine phrased it in 1841, a mother was supposed not to teach virtue but inspire it. (5) Taken together, these writings suggest that ideal mother accomplished her work simply by loving her children; no more rigorous methods were necessary. At its core, antebellum cult of mother rested on fundamentally emotional, irrational character of mother's attitude towards her children. To underscore this point, I will use term refer this cluster of beliefs. (6) Most critics of nineteenth-century American literature conclude that popular women's novels of mid-century bear imprint of domesticity, including its emphasis on sentimental maternalism, although they debate extent which these texts advance or impede progressive political transformation. (7) Stephanie Smith, for example, deems it a commonplace say that representations of a sanctified motherhood formed primary cornerstone for commercially successful writing in United States of nineteenth century. (8) But suggest that domestic fictions uniformly or unequivocally promote sentimental maternalism misreads this genre. Detailed portraits of competent, capable motherhood (let alone sanctified variety) rarely appear in most domestic fictions. (9) Far from promoting mother's educative primacy, some of nineteenth century's best-selling domestic novels demonstrate nothing so much as her superfluity. This article shows how two popular domestic novels--Susan Warner's The Wide, Wide World (1850) and Maria Cummins' The Lamplighter (1854)--point out limits of sentimental maternalism as an instrument for educating young women. …