The Plantation Mistress Essay Research Paper Critical

.The Plantation Mistress Essay, Research Paper

Critical Analysis

.The Plantation Mistress.

Clinton.s presents the realities of lives of plantation mistresses their activities as wives, mothers and household managers. The most important contribution that Clinton makes, however, is in showing how the institution of slavery affected all aspects of southern women.s lives. Southern attitudes towards marital fidelity, abortion, and birth control were all conditioned by plantation owner.s need for both heirs (white) and workers (blacks or mostly so). The author warns readers not to replace one myth, that of sexless beauty of purity and pampered idleness, with another .the contemporary romantic image of buried passion ready to erupt at a moment.s notice. For both myths are equally false.

This book centers on the life of the planter.s wife in the antebellum south (1780- 1835), the author shows that the white mistress was actually more in bondage that the slaves because she literally had no other woman or a community with who to share her experience. The Negroes, in contrast shared a common background going back roots in Africa, their daily work, and local subculture with fellow slaves. Clinton doesn.t avoid controversial subjects exploited in recent fiction about the antebellum era. She does succeed in exposing the romanticized character of the unfaithful white mistress by showing that promiscuity was simply not part of the accepted code of the southern women. Ample quotations from the women themselves give first . person voice to the text.

Catherine Clinton successfully reveals the truth behind the myth created of the charming belles and courtly balls in the antebellum south. .In The Plantation Mistress,. the author skillfully reconstructs the realities facing a restricted and repressed class of women who have been historically eulogized by Hollywood and the popular press for over 150 years. The idea is simple: the leisure status of the planter’s lady is a fairy tale told to spruce up the Lost Cause image. “The planter’s wife was in charge not merely of the mansion but the entire spectrum of domestic operations throughout the estate, from food and clothing to the physical and spiritual care of both her white family and her husband’s slaves.”

To comprehend the bondage of upper class whites females in the South one must compare it to the bondage of slaves. It is essential to first determine the basis for that comparison and their positions in society during the antebellum period. It was a complicated situation that offered well-born women wealth and class because of their race, but also oppression because of their gender. At birth, girls became the property of their fathers (mothers had no legal claim to their children). When they married, they became the property of their husbands, and so did any land or valuables they may have owned. Their position placed them in charge of their household that catered to the needs of their white family and their husband.s slaves. They were .allowed. to carry the keys to the plantation, but those keys only served to keep them locked within their sphere. Similarly with slaves in bondage at birth, .slaves. became the property of their masters (mothers and fathers had no legal claim to their children). When they married, women became the property of their husband however they both are still the property of the master, and so did any land or valuables they may have owned depending were they lived. Their position placed them in charge of their household that catered to the needs of their white family and their husband.s slaves. They were .allowed. to walk around the plantation or learn some craft, but those .liberties. only served to keep them locked within their sphere.

The males of Southern households ruled alone. Although some elite white ladies may have been unaware of their status, or denied it, the fact remained that most of them had no personal identity. As long as white women and slaves remained in their proper places and obeyed their masters, they were treated well. For the South, a Southern woman.s strength was her weakness; coherent with Catherine Clinton.s ideas were that of Angela Davis. In fact the general opinion of that time was that a woman.s only right was to be protected by her lord and master, but if she was strong and independent, her master had the right to abuse her within the law. That firmly echoed a parallel to slavery. “There was no slave, after all, like a wife. It did not, however, suggest that all upper-class men were abusive of their patriarchal position or of the women of their households; it merely pointed out that it was within their rights and prerogatives to have done so.

Other reasons for the Southern ladies to have been discontent were written into their diaries. Only there did many of them dare to proclaim their frustration and anger over male dominance that limited their boundaries.

Relations between men and women in the planter class were similarly paternalistic. Education was given to young women, but no Southern woman had schooling equal to that of a man of her class. Women were not expected to need more of an education because most married at a young age and spent the rest of their lives engaged in domestic work. After marriage, the fear of continued pregnancy gave them cause for worry as many of them died in childbirth. The added responsibili