The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 99, July 1995 - April, 1996 Page: 38
626 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
ideal of piety to pursue membership even against the wishes of their hus-
bands.5 At least in the sphere of religion, women often had a life inde-
pendent of their husbands.
Even in the self-assertive act of joining the church, women's reasoning
depended primarily on other attributes of womanhood, such as piety or
domesticity. By maintaining a virtuous and pious example, women could
affect the moral health of others.46 Successful stories in the religious
newspapers about the agency of women in the conversion of others
abounded. "A consistent Christian lady" could keep young men from
"breaking the Sabbath, from drinking, from chewing," or from dancing
because of the respect men accorded to pious women.47 An exemplary
woman could convince her children and husband to join the church, or
at least not sin.48 Local examples and their own ministers' exhortations
also encouraged the women in Houston to accept the duty of being a pi-
ous example. Judge T. B. J. Hadley, who became the most active deacon
of Houston's First Baptist Church, had joined the church several years
after his wife.49 Reverend William Y. Allen, founder and pastor of First
Presbyterian Church, recorded in his diary the story of a wounded man
who had called for a preacher. Colonel Wharton, who had been a well-
known "skeptic" and deist in Houston, asked Allen to pray for him as he
lay dying from a gunshot wound. Allen, of course, obliged and recorded
in his diary "I learned afterwards that he [Colonel Wharton] had had a
pious mother. Perhaps her piety had been remembered."0 And, the re-
sults could be disastrous if the woman did not encourage her family to
proper piety: "Perhaps the present degraded condition of the millions
of immortal souls now living in idolatry, with all their guilt and misery,
might be traced up to the neglect of family instruction, as one principal
cause."1
Women's piety, therefore, was an ideal that could both confine them
to the domestic role and liberate them from complete submissiveness.
45 Kierner, "Woman's Piety within Patriarchy," 79.
46 Fox-Genovese, "Religion in the Lives of Slaveholding Women of the Antebellum South,"
209-212; Anne Douglas, The Feminization of American Culture (New York: Knopf Books, 1977),
50-51, 80-9o; Mathews, Religion in the Old South, 112; Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood, 86,
147-148. For rehgious reasoning on influence and submission, see MacHaffie, Her Story, 96.
47 "To Young Ladies," Texas Baptist (Galveston), Jan. 6, 1858 (quotations); "A Young Lady's
Reason for Not Dancing," The Texas Wesleyan Banner (Houston), Apr. 29, 1854-
0 Pious and "long-suffering" women had particular impact on their husbands' and sons'
drinking habits. "A Mother's Counsel," Texas Baptast (Galveston), Jan. 6, 1858; "A Wife's Re-
buke," The Texas Wesleyan Banner (Houston), Apr. 29, 1854.
49 "Biographical Sketches," Texas Historical and Biographical Magazine, II (Apr., 1892), 248.
5o William S. Red (ed.), "Extracts from the Diary of W. Y. Allen, 1838-1839," Southwestern His-
torical Quarterly, XXVII (July, 1913), 58, diary entry Aug. 26, 1838.
51 "Family Worship," Texas Baptist (Galveston), Oct. 1o, 1855.July
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 99, July 1995 - April, 1996, periodical, 1996; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101217/m1/66/: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.