The Kingdom of Matthias by Paul E. Johnson and Sean Wilentz is the story of the rise and fall of a religious cult founded by Robert Matthews (Matthias). Within his kingdom, Matthias and his followers, respected by Matthias, believe in the subjugation of women by men. While the cult existed at the time, the United States was experiencing two major movements urging the advancement of women, the Market Revolution and the Second Great Awakening. In Johnson and Wilentz's book, two women in particular are mentioned who were actually suppressed by Matthias and his subjects. One was Isabella van Wagenen, the slave who worked on Mount Zion and even Matthias' daughter, Isabella Matthews Laisdell. The Kingdom of Matthias reveals that the 19th century saw the presence of an oppressive "prophet" known as Matthias who tyrannically degraded women through cruel treatment, sexual advances and belittling them in a society that was beginning to notice the skew of women's rights, all of these violent and heinous acts ultimately led to the fall of Matthias' kingdom. The lifestyle of the woman's role in society was to take care of the house while the husband went to work and to make the husband's life easier whenever the husband was at home. Although during the 19th century we begin to see a movement towards women's rights. During the Second Great Awakening women were given a greater role in activities such as religion. Women could be sent regularly on missions or even to preach in churches. What was said was something Matthias in particular tried to prevent. Matthias went so far as to prevent women from preaching in church that he was expelled from one of the churches that... middle of paper... acted upon women in many different ways, beating them or engaging in sexual activity on a regular basis. These acts of misogyny, which seek to force them to do only household chores while verbally degrading them, could be known as just a small step forward in progress towards women's rights and could be a prime example of why women should have rights. However, Matthias managed to make his followers believe in his religion, understand his beliefs and go against the progression of women's rights. The "kingdom" eventually fell due to the way society was growing during the Second Great Awakening and the Market Revolution; it gave women the ability to have the power to respectively incorporate them into the society. Works Cited The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th-Century America - Paul E. Johnson and Sean Wilentz Give Me Liberty 3rd Edition - Eric Foner.