Their husbands preferred to sexualize with slave women over them, they had no political voice, and no real influential position in American society. The "Soul Murder " of the white woman becomes prevalent as slavery becomes rampant in the United States. The symptom of depression develops as white women are put down even below slave women as sexually desirable by their own husbands. A lack of self-esteem follows and these women see themselves as victims. The slave-owners' wives also show anger toward the slave women due to jealousy that their husbands chose African slaves over their wives. .
Another element of slavery that becomes influential to slave-owning families and slaves is physical abuse. The way that masters controlled slaves and kept them obedient was greatly through physical abuse. Slave-owners who were beat their slaves often used this same tactic to keep control of their own children. When their kids were being disobedient, parents would beat them just as they beat their slaves in order to reiterate their power and remind the children to respect them. This is how they were taught stay obedient and use this same idea for their own kids. In contrast, other witnesses of this physical abuse had been oppositely affected. Painter includes a story she read of a girl who felt sympathy for a slave boy with cuts all over him from being whipped. Some witnesses including the girl in the story, felt sorry for the victims and would not want to be treated or treat people in that same way. It was more common for children and females to have this kind of sympathy for the slaves. Men and boys were supposed to be the enforcers and show no weakness or mercy. If a boy did feel sorry for a slave being mistreated, it was his father's job to desensitize his son so that eventually he would be able to do this same kind of abuse on the slaves. The physical abuse used on slaves had a rippling effect on how parents disciplined children and also psychologically scarred both the slaves receiving the abuse and witnesses of it.