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Married Women In The Late 1800's

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Treatment of Married Women in the Late 1800’s
Married women in the late 1800’s during Kate Chopin’s time did not have rights and were considered to be the property of their husbands. Kate Chopin is a well-renowned author known for her writing about women’s lives and her support for the suffrage movement. Married women during the late 1800’s in Kate Chopin’s time were oppressed because they did not have rights to their property, did not have the right to vote, and were not considered to be equal to men.
Women in the late 1800’s did not have rights to their own property as everything was considered to be their husbands. Women fought a long battle to just gain the rights to land that was already theirs. The “Declaration of Sentiments” created …show more content…
Men held right over property, rights to vote, had more education, freedom to do what they wanted with their wages, and had rights over women. In an article commentary of the Declaration of Sentiments proclaimed that: Included in the “Declaration of Sentiments” was a list of eighteen injustices endured by women, ranging from the lack of equal educational opportunities and the denial of the right to vote to the exclusion of public participation in the affairs of the church. It also protested unequal wages and employment opportunities (Declaration of Sentiments).Women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth, and Susan B. Anthony fought for women’s rights in the 1800’s and most of their wants have been achieved, but women to this day are not equal to men. The unequal wages that Stanton discusses in the Declaration of Sentiments is still a problem in the United States today. In an excerpt from “Half a Century” a woman describes her love for painting, but that she cannot paint because it is not a women’s duty. “I put away my brushes; resolutely crucified my divine gift, and while it hung writhing on the cross, spent my best years and powers cooking cabbage. “A servant of servants shall she be," must have been spoken of women…” (Excerpt from Half A Century (Chapter 8)(1880). She is describing herself as the lowest of classes; below blacks who were treated horribly because they gained …show more content…
The USBA secretly provided financial support for anti-suffrage campaigns at the state level…” as stated by an article on the alcohol and temperance movement (United States Brewers’ Association (USBA). Big alcohol corporations could not let women get in the way of them making money, so they tried to make sure they did not have a say by voting. Women had never been allowed in saloons or in bars and did not support them, and usually, only men would drink, so if women had the right to vote prohibition would have started earlier. The Seneca Falls convention where Elizabeth Cady Stanton gave her Declaration of Sentiments was mocked because it “generated widespread ridicule” and for its “hostility” (Declaration of Sentiments). The convention was ridiculed and received negative connotations by religious leaders and the press for not being a modest proposal like women should be. They believe that the way the women went about arguing for rights was viewed as absurd. That if women want to try to promote rights they should go about it more modestly. Many viewed the Declaration of Sentiments to be an “absurdity” of a proposal (Declaration of Sentiments). The anti-suffragist felt that Stanton was asking for too much, asking to be superior rather than equal. Anti-suffragist feared women gaining rights or believed that they were not oppressed to need

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