The Nineteenth Amendment

After the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment many Americans thought that women enriched political life with a gendered sensibility and that they were less partisan and self-interested in their outlooks. Furthermore, they were also considered to be adherents of a whole series of social welfare measures such as child labor legislation, temperance, education, and maternity and infant health care provision. Moreover, it was believed that women’s political outlooks were local, since they were animated by women’s practical experience.

It should be noted that although politically gendered, women were notified not to form a separate political block. This is how Margaret Woodrow Wilson commented on this issue, “After demanding the right to vote as their right as men’s equals and because they wanted to take their part with men in public affairs, it is dishonest for women to act as if they were not citizens along with men but a class apart.”(Ritter, 353)

The Nineteenth Amendment established that liberal citizenship was under the most favorable circumstances an imperfect vehicle for the political articulation and mobilization of women. During the period of suffrage struggle, the right to vote was considered by many to be the central right of citizenship. When women were granted the right to vote, they were supposed to be full citizens. However, this did not happen.

The Nineteenth Amendment managed to establish a new standing for women as equal individuals within the political sphere. It should be admitted that there were substantial changes in the laws governing married women as the presumption of equality in the political sphere, though it was narrowly construed constitutionally, had a normative influence on lawmakers and judges. However, it was still believed that wives owed their husbands access to their sexuality and various forms of domestic service. The principle under which husbands chose the family domicile still took place. Furthermore, in the courtroom husbands and wives could not testify about marital communications. Thus, there were areas, in which the status of wife remained civilly relevant, and the notion of marital unity, though limited, still mattered.

References

Anthony, Susan B. History of Woman Suffrage, Fowler & Wells Publishers, 1881.

Barry, Kathleen. Susan B. Anthony: A Biography, New York University Press, 1988.

Gretchen Ritter. Gender and Citizenship after the Nineteenth Amendment.Polity, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Spring, 2000), pp. 345-375

Stanton Elizabeth C., Susan B. Anthony. Correspondence, Writings, Speeches Ed. by Ellen C. DuBois; New York, Shocken Books : 1981, pp. 152- 165.