If you were single and did not plan on marrying, then you were looked at as an outcast. When women married, they became feme covert. This term refers to women who did not have legal existence in the eyes of the law once they were married. She can’t own property in her own name or control her earnings. They were bound by certain rules, even if their husband died, they were still required to be controlled by their sons and if none, their siblings or closest relative would take care of them. They were thought to be more pure, weak, emotional and dependent on man, while men are characterized to be powerful, logical, ambitious and independent. Barbara Welter described this ideology as “The Cult of True Womanhood”. Women were expected to obtain these four main principles: piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity. They …show more content…
They wanted to be able to earn money on their own, in their own name and support themselves without the approval of their husband. This is why they started the women’s suffrage movement. The main goal of this movement was to be considered equal to men, such as their ability to vote and earn wages without a man’s consent. Lucretia Mott, one of the famous women’s rights activists, was denied a seat at the World Anti-Slavery Convention and preached outside the hall of the convention. While she was in London, she met Elizabeth Cady Stanton and they bonded over their shared opinions of the lack of rights for women. They both organized the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls in 1848. It was a convention to discuss the social, civil, religious conditions and rights of women. Lucretia Mott presented the Declaration of Sentiments, which contained signatures of men and women who were declaring their separation from men. About 300 people attended this convention and it was successful in the way that it pushed men to think about the fact that women needs these rights. The convention didn’t really push for immediate results as to gaining their rights faster, but it did prove to men that this is a really serious issue and that women really need their rights. But not everyone thought that they needed these rights, even women among them. There were some women, such as Catherine Beecher,