ABSTRACT
This essay focuses on the status of women in the American South during the antebellum and the Civil War eras through the examination of the autobiography of Mary Boykin Chesnut, a plantation lady from South Carolina. Among other issues, Chesnut discusses the impact slavery had on white women and comments on the repercussions of miscegenation. Even though the plantation lady was placed on a pedestal and projected an icon of southern culture’s perfection, she was oppressed by the existing patriarchal culture and excluded from active social and political participation. The primary ideology that dominated white women’s conduct was the cult of true womanhood, which delineated the ideal female virtues and expected women to perform an ornamental function in society, reflecting their husbands’ power and wealth. However, during the four years of the Civil War, women were forced to acquire a new sense of themselves (born out of necessity) and came to face the postwar world with a feeling of empowerment. Their lives were significantly altered by the abolition of slavery and the destruction of the plantation system. Women’s demand for change gradually led to their suffrage and the collapse of the patriarchal system.
