Within the antebellum South’s plantation system, women led restricted lives that were controlled by social principles and gender conventions that were viewed through a prism of honor. Shaped by the ideals of personal and familial image, the precept required the total acquiescence of women. Since the link between a man’s reputation and the actions of his family was significant to his social status and power, female submission and obedience to male authority were essential. Women’s compliance to social norms ensured proper female behavior and safeguarded the male reputation. Through a sense of family and community pride, elite women accepted their predestined roles as wives, mothers, and daughters and sought to appropriately represent the honor of their husbands, sons, brothers, and fathers. Despite their own personal feelings about the limitations placed on their lives, planter women stoically submitted themselves to the requirements of southern society and worked to present the impression of perfect southern women.
The important association between honor and female values influenced the manner in which plantation women understood and fulfilled their community’s gender standards. By connecting reputation and honor to social status and power, southern society defined the features of women’s duty and identified the female obligations of purity, piety, submission, and domesticity as vital aspects of an acceptable communal image. The relationship between proper female behavior and reputation and honor was so important that the entire plantation community took part in the instruction of the region’s young women. Friends, family, and neighbors initiated their youth in their society’s standards and formed penalties for misbehavior. Gossip and ostracism were the essential tools used to ensure women’s compliance with the ideals of proper behavior. The protection of individual and family reputation and honor through adherence to gender principles was so important to planter society that it was a vital factor in the gender-based changes produced by the Civil War. While elite southern women met the new requirements of their altered conditions, they continued to safeguard their personal and familial reputation and honor.