Assignment 1: The Republican Mother

Discussion Question #1
Part 1: The Republican Mother
As Colonial America came to an end in the late 1600’s and entered into a new phase of the Revolutionary era in America, the role of women was beginning to take a new form. The actions of the Salem Witch trials in 1693 brought about changes, and forced the passage of new rights and laws enacted such as the “Widows Third” to help establish a better financial system to keep a woman from becoming dependent on society and allowing her more self sufficiency.
Almost a century removed from the actions that spawned these changes, came a new idea and view of women called “The Republican Mother”. Society’s needs for women had begun to transform, which brought about changes such as citizenship for women. “The model republican woman was competent…..she was rational, independent, literate, and self-reliant”(pg.147). These new views of women challenged the foundations of the Colonial establishment of the Doctrine of Coverture, the law that forced a married woman to become a dependant and fall under her husband’s protection.
However, significant changes may have conflicted with some of the ideologies of Colonial America and the Doctrine of Coverture; it also helped strengthen its hold on domestic relations.
“Every free man, rich or poor, white or black, gained something from the system of domestic relations already in place; they had no need to renegotiate it”(pg.149). The Republican mother was seen as a teacher of liberty and government to her sons, and also a supporter of the overall system, but still without the right to vote, and with the judicial system still not interfering with domestic relations, there was little change to be
seen.

Part 2: "The Hemings-Jefferson Treaty: Paris 1789
The relationship that developed between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings in the 1780’s raises very interesting questions about women born into slavery, and gives a strong example of the difficult positions they found themselves in, and choices they were forced to make. I believe the author’s statement “it is doubtful that Hemings thought about being a slave was more at the core of her existence than being female” (pg.142) is accurate and carries a definite truth behind it. Sally Hemings was the half sister of Thomas Jefferson’s wife Martha Wayles, and that fact, along with their romantic relationship had a definite effect on the way she was viewed and treated by Jefferson. Another interesting fact about this story is that Sally Hemings was three quarters white and one quarter black, and that may have also affected her view of slavery compared to those slaves of all black descent. At fourteen years old Sally Hemings found herself pregnant in Paris, France from an older established and highly respected white male Thomas Jefferson. I don’t feel she had or felt she had any real say regarding her future. Even if she was free, that didn’t exactly give her true freedom. The author states Hemings could have made a different choice, “Had Hemings decided to break away from Jefferson and start a new life with her brother, her children could have remained free at birth”(pg.144). As much as the text states she could have remained in Paris, at that age and pregnant, I don’t feel it is a realistic claim. If you consider her mindset as woman in the 1780’s, I believe her focus was on continuing her relationship with the father of her child, hoping to survive child birth and remaining under the protection or “cover” of her partner, a partner that had means and could provide a stable living arrangement. Even if it meant returning to the world where she was limited in her capacity to have a free life, in the short term it was the only logical and realistic choice, rather than find herself abandoned, pregnant and without the father of her children in a foreign country.