ABSTRACT
The home – including marriage, family and children – was central to women’s discontent in the 1850s as much as it was glorified in mainstream public discourse. Because these personal and familial relations were articulated by public authorities to be the natural province of women – and because women were psychologically, socially and economically coerced into restricting themselves to these relationships – many strong-minded women focused on male tyranny in the domestic sphere as a major arena for women’s resistance. As Elizabeth Cady Stanton writes, “The radical reform must start in our homes, in our nurseries, in ourselves” (“Radical Reform Starts in the Home”).
