Perhaps she realized her husband did not really love her. or, she may have realized that her married her simply to convert her, and she chafed at giving up her own culture and roots. Probably, she followed him willfully as his wife (and as a woman's duty), but she could have found that marriage without love is not nearly as satisfying as a loving relationship, and she may have been disappointed and disillusioned, something that clearly shows in her proud features. Whatever the painting explores, it shows a rigid and seemingly unhappy woman, and this seems to mirror many women's lives at the time. They were subservient to men, and even more, they played little role in most of society, and so, they were not masters of their own fates or well being. They could not own property, they could not vote, they could not hold office, and most of all; they rarely had the ability to live on their own. Even their artwork was different. As the text author notes, their artwork was made up of "quilts, needlework, small watercolors, and private mourning images" (Bjelajac 120). Even quality artwork was off limits to them, and so, they contributed little to the art world,...
They show women who were devalued in society, and whose most important job was marriage and motherhood, with little else to fulfill or nurture them. They show that women have been devalued throughout American history, and expected to give up their own needs and wants for those of their husbands and families. While Liberty does hand out benevolent information to free blacks, they appear more as dependent children in the work, dependent on the "mother" figure to hand them information and knowledge they can use in their own lives. Both women in these works are depicted as austere and unsmiling, and both are depicted in detail, but the detail of their surroundings is more important. This mirrors women in society, they were not as important as their families and husbands, and their main purpose was to raise young men to be good leaders.
References
Bjelajac, David. American Art, a Cultural History. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Peterson Education, 2003.
