Southern women, more so than northern, accepted exclusion from voting and political office as natural and proper and scored those who tested the boundaries of good taste. A lady expressed political opinions, but of course she deferred to the opinions of father, brother, or husband. Despite extraordinary pretense and interminable blather, sensible men, northern and southern, acknowledged women's interest in politics within the bounds of accepted etiquette, which required a southern lady to deride “petticoat politicians,” eschew public controversy, and indignantly deny that she would dream of “meddling” in civic affairs. A gentleman did not refuse to hear her opinions, much less presume to question her Christian principles and loyalty to the South.

The Romans' literary image of aristocratic mothers, Susan Dixon comments, gave them standing as “disciplinarians, custodians of Roman culture and traditional morality” – a role akin to that of fathers. Roman mothers of the elite had a duty to train their sons for service to the state and their daughters to train sons of their own.