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Women's Rights Dbq

Women’s Rights

The issue of women and the rights that they had slowly began to develop years after America gained its independence from Britain in 1776.   During this time period, women were not as important as the men because they were considered to be inferior.   Therefore, women had less power than men, their rights were limited, and their opinions were most of the time disregarded.   However, many years passed by and the country and its people began to grow, people started realizing how important it was for women to be treated as equal as men.   The inventions of the Industrial Revolution and the movements that followed changed the lives and status of Northern middle-class women in the time period of 1776-1876.   They spoke out for their rights, placing a new mindset about the significance of women in the society.
The task of a woman, before their lives and status began to change, were to take care of the household while the man would be the main source of income for money by working.   This approach of how a man is superior to the woman was taken from the laws of England. Sir William Blackstone wrote about the laws of England stating that after a woman gets married with a man, the woman and man would be considered as one person, but the man would still have more power than the woman.   Especially during court, a woman would not be able to defend herself, but needs the husband to be the defendant.   Being written in 1765, this shows that the idea of how women and men were not considered equal was adopted from the mother country, Britain (Document A).   Eventually, women began to show concern towards this matter, starting with Abigail Adams in 1776 (Document B).   She wrote a series of letters that talked about how there should be more opportunities for women and was especially interested in the field of education.   In a letter written to her husband, John Adams, in March of 1776, she asked him to “remember the Ladies” when he helps write the new Code of Laws in the...