Women in the nineteenth century were not really considered adults until they gave birth to a child. A woman who could not have children for one reason or another was never truly considered an adult no matter her age.

Motherhood was not really the choice that it is today. It was assumed upon marriage that a woman would begin giving her husband heirs. Male children were desired more than female in order to carry on the family name and because property legally passed from father to son rather than from mother to daughter. Upon her marriage, all of a woman's possessions, property, money, and even children, legally belonged to her husband. He was the breadwinner, the provider, the head of household and the wife owed him all the children she could give him. The levels of femininity were dictated by her life's accomplishments - a good marriage brought her up a level and then having children brought her to the most respected level of motherhood.

A woman who could not have children led a life more in solitude than her motherly counterparts. She lacked the female bonding achieved through women assisting each other through pregnancy and childbirth. Women who did not yet give birth to a child were shielded from pregnancy and childbirth to protect their virtues and to not frighten them from the bloody reality of it. Motherhood created a bond among the most respected women and the more children they had, the more respect they earned.