h child rearing the most important aspect of home. Women then became willing to follow the leanings of society and remain at home. Of course, the women had to be able to do what was expected of them but mothers, school, society, and peers all helped prepare them for being a housewife. The husband also had to be willing to accept the opportunity of being the sole provider and society helped him make that decision by making the role of good provider synonymous with masculinity itself (Bernard 11). All of these conditions were met and couples began more and more to fall into the roles society set out for them.
             As men and women accepted the roles set out for them by society, they looked for justifications for those roles. They found them in the assumptions that society had come up with for males, females, children, and society in general. According to Barbara Epstein, in Industrialization and Femininity: A Case Study of Nineteenth-Century New England, women were told that they had special abilities for raising children due to their innate warmth and morality. Women were also told that children were innocent and malleable to help justify women being kept in the home and that this innocence placed them in need of undivided attention (Epstein/Easton 96, 97). As time progressed so did assumptions. Women were told that they could not have a job and a man and that women were better off than they had ever been (Coontz 52). Men, too, were victims of assumptions by society. As mentioned earlier, masculinity was tied to being a good provider with sexiness and virility endowed on a good provider. It was assumed that a good provider would put his job ahead of his family (Bernard 10). The marriage itself was the victim of assumptions. Some claimed that this type of marriage built around the nuclear family was the cornerstone of society (Coontz 48). The biggest assumption was that both men and women were happy and satisfied in their rol...