Which means their livelihood is placed in serious jeopardy because they are fulfilling their duties to procreation. Submissiveness was the third attribute, and probably the most common one people associate with early American husband/wife relationships. Women were told they should be feminine, which included being weak, passive, timid and dependent. This dependency should reflect their willingness to obey and submit to their husbands. Lastly, domesticity, referred to with modesty as "the woman belongs in the kitchen" syndrome. Women were supposed to remain in the home and care for the children and other household needs. Because women with the above characteristics ran the household, the home was viewed as a refuge from the immoral, male dominated society. However, women could not conform to these strict and demanding guidelines, and thus, their actual lives somewhat departed from the ideal. .
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Many women were able to conform, for the most part, to these ideals, however, many due to their situation, were forced to stray from the norm. For instance, this was not applied to working-class women. They had to work outside of the home due to economic necessity, and were often subjected to suspicion and ridicule because they were unable to abide by the ideals. Western women experienced an unusual lifestyle due to their traveling situation. Not only did they partake in the usual feminine duties of sewing, cooking, cleaning, and childcare; they were given another set of roles because of the demands of the road. Travel meant teamwork and they quickly found themselves doing men's work; repairing wagons, making bridges and driving the oxen. However, this extra work did not gain them any more superiority or power in the family. They struggled to keep the male/female line drawn and to create a sense of traditional home values while on the trail. Southern women's lives were also very different than the ideal woman's life.