Women in the Home

In The Role of Women in Uncle Tom's Cabin, Christine Haug addresses how Stowe feels about the role of women. In the 19th century women were considered lesser or inferior to men. Their place was not out in the world. The woman's place was the home. Their job was to raise children, running the household and working with the house servants. In this period of time it was not considered acceptable for women to work in marketplace. Haug further explains that how women were seen as insignificant and completely unattached to the business of men. Haug states that in Uncle Tom's Cabin, this is not the case. Haug says that Stowe’s argument is that as wives and mothers, women have the ability to shape the morals, values and the actions of the men and children in their households. Haug stresses that within Uncle Tom's Cabin that women are more than the quiet and reserved that they are once to be thought in the 19th century, Haug says there is another theme in Uncle Tom's Cabin and it is that women have a great deal of an effect on the men that are around them. Women raise the child and therefore inflict the values of themselves onto the child. Likewise women are able to inflict there values on their husband. Haug references from Uncle Tom's Cabin to strengthen and give reason to her argument. Haug goes on to claim the connected idea that Stowe draws between the slavery of the African Americans and the submissiveness of the women in the 18th century and how both were searching for their place of power and freedom.

The point of view that Christine Haug gives in her article explains the reasoning for much of the idolization that appears within many of the mothers in Uncle Tom's Cabin. The motherly figure is one that is constantly idolized. "... the children all avowed that they wouldn't miss of hearing mother's chair for anything in the world. For why? for twenty years or more nothing but loving worlds and gentle moralities, and motherly loving kindness, had come from that chair;-head-aches and heart-aches innumerable had been cured there,-difficulties spiritual and temporal solved there,-all by one good, loving woman, God bless her!" (Stowe p 122) Stowe gives all motherly characters this same glow that is found in this quotation. In The Role of Women in Uncle Tom's Cabin, Christine Haug goes beyond that "glow", and extends into the power that is behind that maternal love. "Wives play a pivotal role in shaping the morals and actions of their husbands." (Haug) Yes, women in the 19 century could not vote or make important business decisions but something that women could do was influence their husbands. "You ought to be ashamed, John! Poor, homeless creatures! It's shameful, wicked abominable law, and I'll break it for one, the first I get a chance; and I hope I shall have a chance I do! (Stowe p 72) In the quotation Mrs. Bird is arguing her point about the disgrace of not being able to help slaves. Even though John, her husband, seems reluctant to come to terms with his wife, when a slave does turn up at their door, John does exactly what his wife would have wanted, without Mrs. Bird saying anything about the matter. Not only affecting the husband, the women in the home also affect the children they raise, in stowing their own values on them.

"Without a strong female figure, the domesticity of a home suffers and, in turn, affects the character and relationships of the men in her home." (Haug) When reading through this article Uncle Tom's Cabin becomes clearer. The role of women in the book was not just random or for the enjoyment of the author, the women’s roles were extremely precise. I believe Stowe intended for the women's movement to spark from this because her book showed all that women did at the time being and that women could do more. Stowe showed women as strong, able to care for a family and able to make decisions on moral choices and within the business.



Haug, Christine "Beyond Hearth and Home: Roles of Women in Uncle Tom's Cabin"
Victoriana, Victoriana Magazine. 1996-2012. 14 March 2013
http://www.victoriana.com/womensissues/uncletomscabin.htm\

Stowe, Harriet Beecher "Uncle Tom's Cabin"
Uncle Tom's Cabin Critical Edition
Ed Elizabeth Ammons
NY: Norton 2012 532 539