Republican Motherhood - History of Republican Motherhood

History of Republican Motherhood

The term "republican motherhood" was not used in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries. It was first used in 1980 to describe the American ideal by the historian Linda K. Kerber, in her book Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America. The historian Jan Lewis subsequently expanded the concept in her article "The Republican Wife: Virtue and Seduction in the Early Republic," published in the William and Mary Quarterly (1987). The early seeds of the concept are found in the works of John Locke, the notable eighteenth-century philosopher. In his First Treatise, he included women in social theory, and in his Second Treatise defined their roles more clearly. As Kerber quotes in her 1997 essay, Locke wrote: "he first society was between man and wife, which gave beginning to that between parents and children... conjugal society is made by a voluntary compact between man and woman." In other words, contrary to the traditional sexual hierarchy promoted by his contemporary Robert Filmer and others, Locke believed that men and women had more equal roles in a marriage. Women were expected to focus on domestic issues, but Locke's treatises helped appreciation of the value of the domestic sphere. Although Locke argued less in support of women after he had dissected Filmore's writings, his treatises were influential in highlighting the role of women in society.