Quiz for American Voices:
The Trials of Married Life

Question

1. Which of the following problems did the women who wrote these selections in the nineteenth century share with one another?

A.
B.
C.
D.
Correct. The answer is b. The women who authored these selections all describe situations in which they felt dissatisfied with their lives as wives and mothers.
Incorrect. The answer is b. The women who authored these selections all describe situations in which they felt dissatisfied with their lives as wives and mothers.

Question

2. According to the documents excerpted here, what factor explained many husbands’ withdrawal of affection from their wives?

A.
B.
C.
D.
Correct. The answer is a. According to Willard, Gilman, and Hitchcock, men’s preoccupations with their careers and public roles increased their self-absorption and lack of interest in their wives.
Incorrect. The answer is a. According to Willard, Gilman, and Hitchcock, men’s preoccupations with their careers and public roles increased their self-absorption and lack of interest in their wives.

Question

3. What advice did Caroline Howard Gilman offer to women in source 2 about how they should improve their lives?

A.
B.
C.
D.
Correct. The answer is b. Gilman advised women who were unhappy in their marriages to submit to their husbands, repress their feelings, and continue to “smile amid a thousand perplexities.”
Incorrect. The answer is b. Gilman advised women who were unhappy in their marriages to submit to their husbands, repress their feelings, and continue to “smile amid a thousand perplexities.”

Question

4. Which of the following solutions would Mary Wollstonecraft have offered for solving the dilemmas these women articulated?

A.
B.
C.
D.
Correct. The answer is c. Mary Wollstonecraft, who published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792, would have suggested that these women’s unhappiness stemmed in large part from their legal and political status, which forced them to remain in unhappy marriages.
Incorrect. The answer is c. Mary Wollstonecraft, who published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792, would have suggested that these women’s unhappiness stemmed in large part from their legal and political status, which forced them to remain in unhappy marriages.

Question

5. By the 1820s, middle-class white women, like those featured in these sources, began to seek fulfillment and satisfaction from what other source, in addition to marriage and family?

A.
B.
C.
D.
Correct. The answer is d. By the 1820s, many white middle-class American women were inspired by the Second Great Awakening and flooded into evangelical churches, where they found satisfying relationships with other women and more socially meaningful roles.
Incorrect. The answer is d. By the 1820s, many white middle-class American women were inspired by the Second Great Awakening and flooded into evangelical churches, where they found satisfying relationships with other women and more socially meaningful roles.