Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- Prologue
- PART ONE CRADLED IN THE STORMS OF REVOLUTION
- PART TWO THE INESCAPABLE PAST
- PART THREE ANCIENT LEGACIES, MEDIEVAL SENSIBILITY, MODERN MEN
- 8 In the Shadow of Antiquity
- 9 Coming to Terms with the Middle Ages
- 10 The Chivalry
- 11 Chivalric Slave Masters
- 12 Chivalric Politics: Southern Ladies Take Their Stand
- PART FOUR A CHRISTIAN PEOPLE DEFEND THE FAITH
- PART FIVE AT THE RUBICON
- Epilogue: King Solomon's Dilemma
- Supplementary References
- Index
12 - Chivalric Politics: Southern Ladies Take Their Stand
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- Prologue
- PART ONE CRADLED IN THE STORMS OF REVOLUTION
- PART TWO THE INESCAPABLE PAST
- PART THREE ANCIENT LEGACIES, MEDIEVAL SENSIBILITY, MODERN MEN
- 8 In the Shadow of Antiquity
- 9 Coming to Terms with the Middle Ages
- 10 The Chivalry
- 11 Chivalric Slave Masters
- 12 Chivalric Politics: Southern Ladies Take Their Stand
- PART FOUR A CHRISTIAN PEOPLE DEFEND THE FAITH
- PART FIVE AT THE RUBICON
- Epilogue: King Solomon's Dilemma
- Supplementary References
- Index
Summary
Whilst our fathers, brothers, and friends contend on the gory fields for the rights of freemen, we would gladly assist in every way within the sphere of women's influence. …We claim a share in the lives of our brave countrymen; they are fighting for our common rights -we with willing hearts if feeble hands, are engaged in a soul-inspiring cause. We expect not, nor do we wish a voice in the councils of our nation.
—“A Rebel Daughter of Alabama” (1862)Southern women, more so than northern, accepted exclusion from voting and political office as natural and proper and scored those who tested the boundaries of good taste. A lady expressed political opinions, but of course she deferred to the opinions of father, brother, or husband. Despite extraordinary pretense and interminable blather, sensible men, northern and southern, acknowledged women's interest in politics within the bounds of accepted etiquette, which required a southern lady to deride “petticoat politicians,” eschew public controversy, and indignantly deny that she would dream of “meddling” in civic affairs. A gentleman did not refuse to hear her opinions, much less presume to question her Christian principles and loyalty to the South.
The Romans' literary image of aristocratic mothers, Susan Dixon comments, gave them standing as “disciplinarians, custodians of Roman culture and traditional morality” – a role akin to that of fathers. Roman mothers of the elite had a duty to train their sons for service to the state and their daughters to train sons of their own.
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- The Mind of the Master ClassHistory and Faith in the Southern Slaveholders' Worldview, pp. 383 - 406Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005