“I Have shown how democracy destroys or modifies the different inequalities which originate in society; but is this all? or does it not ultimately affect that great inequality of man and woman which has seemed, up to the present day, to be eternally based in human nature? I believe that the social changes which bring nearer to the same level the father and son, the master and servant, and superiors and inferiors generally speaking, will raise woman and make her more and more the equal of man. But here, more than ever, I feel the necessity of making myself clearly understood; for there is no subject on which the coarse and lawless fancies of our age have taken a freer range.
There are people in Europe who, confounding together the different characteristics of the sexes, would make of man and woman beings not only equal but alike. They would give to both the same functions, impose on both the same duties, and grant to both the same rights; they would mix them in all things - their occupations, their pleasures, their business. It may readily be conceived, that by thus attempting to make one sex equal to the other, both are degraded; and from so preposterous a medley of the works of nature nothing could ever result but weak men and disorderly women. It is not thus that the Americans understand that species of democratic equality which may be established between the sexes. They admit, that as nature has appointed such wide differences between the physical and moral constitution of man and woman, her manifest design was to give a distinct employment to their various faculties; and they hold that improvement does not consist in making beings so dissimilar do pretty nearly the same things, but in getting each of them to fulfil their respective tasks in the best possible manner.
The Americans have applied to the sexes the great
principle of political economy which governs the manufactures of our age,
by carefully dividing the duties of man from those of woman, in order that
the great work of society may be the better carried on. In no country has
such constant care been taken as in America to trace two clearly distinct
lines of action for the two sexes, and to make them keep pace one with
the other, but in two pathways which are always different. American women
never manage the outward concerns of the family, or conduct a business,
or take a part in political life; nor are they, on the other hand, ever
compelled to perform the rough labor of the fields, or to make any of those
laborious exertions which demand the exertion of physical strength. No
families are so poor as to form an exception to this rule. If on
the one hand an American woman cannot escape from the quiet circle of domestic
employments, on the other hand she is never forced to go beyond it.
Hence it is that the women of America, who often exhibit a masculine strength
of understanding and a manly energy, generally preserve great delicacy
of personal appearance and always retain the manners of women, although
they sometimes show that they have the hearts and minds of men.
Nor have the Americans ever supposed that one consequence
of democratic principles is the subversion of marital power, of the confusion
of the natural authorities in families. They hold that every association
must have a head in order to accomplish its object, and that the natural
head of the conjugal association is man. They do not therefore deny
him the right of directing his partner; and they maintain, that in the
smaller association of husband and wife, as well as in the great social
community, the object of democracy is to regulate and legalize the powers
which are necessary, not to subvert all power. This opinion is not
peculiar to one sex, and contested by the other: I never observed that
the women of America consider conjugal authority as a fortunate usurpation
of their rights, nor that they thought themselves degraded by submitting
to it. It appeared to me, on the contrary, that they attach a sort
of pride to the voluntary surrender of their own will, and make it their
boast to bend themselves to the yoke, not to shake it off. Such at
least is the feeling expressed by the most virtuous of their sex; the others
are silent; and in the United States it is not the practice for a guilty
wife to clamor for the rights of women, whilst she is trampling on her
holiest duties.
It has often been remarked that in Europe a certain
degree of contempt lurks even in the flattery which men lavish upon women:
although a European frequently affects to be the slave of woman, it may
be seen that he never sincerely thinks her his equal. In the United
States men seldom compliment women, but they daily show how much they esteem
them. They constantly display an entire confidence in the understanding
of a wife, and a profound respect for her freedom; they have decided that
her mind is just as fitted as that of a man to discover the plain truth,
and her heart as firm to embrace it; and they have never sought to place
her virtue, any more than his, under the shelter of prejudice, ignorance,
and fear. It would seem that in Europe, where man so easily submits
to the despotic sway of women, they are nevertheless curtailed of some
of the greatest qualities of the human species, and considered as seductive
but imperfect beings; and (what may well provoke astonishment) women ultimately
look upon themselves in the same light, and almost consider it asa privilege
that they are entitled to show themselves futile, feeble, and timid.
The women of America claim no such privileges. Again, it may be said that
in our morals we have reserved strange immunities to man; so that there
is, as it were, one virtue for his use, and another for the guidance of
his partner; and that, according to the opinion of the public, the very
same act may be punished alternately as a crime or only as a fault. The
Americans know not this iniquitous division of duties and rights; amongst
them the seducer is as much dishonored as his victim.
It is true that the Americans rarely lavish upon
women those eager attentions which are commonly paid them in Europe; but
their conduct to women always implies that they suppose them to be virtuous
and refined; and such is the respect entertained for the moral freedom
of the sex, that in the presence of a woman the most guarded language is
used, lest her ear should be offended by an expression. In America
a young unmarried woman may, alone and without fear, undertake a long journey.
The legislators of the United States, who have mitigated almost all the
penalties of criminal law, still make rape a capital offence, and no crime
is visited with more inexorable severity by public opinion. This
may be accounted for; as the Americans can conceive nothing more precious
than a woman's honor, and nothing which ought so much to be respected as
her independence, they hold that no punishment is too severe for the man
who deprives her of them against her will. In France, where the same
offence is visited with far milder penalties, it is frequently difficult
to get a verdict from a jury against the prisoner. Is this a consequence
of contempt of decency or contempt of women? I cannot but believe
that it is a contempt of one and of the other.
Thus the Americans do not think that man and woman have either the duty or the right to perform the same offices, but they show an equal regard for both their respective parts; and though their lot is different, they consider both of them as beings of equal value. They do not give to the courage of woman the same form or the same direction as to that of man; but they never doubt her courage: and if they hold that man and his partner ought not always to exercise their intellect and understanding in the same manner, they at least believe the understanding of the one to be as sound as that of the other, and her intellect to be as clear. Thus, then, whilst they have allowed the social inferiority of woman to subsist, they have done all they could to raise her morally and intellectually to the level of man; and in this respect they appear to me to have excellently understood the true principle of democratic improvement. As for myself, I do not hesitate to avow that, although the women of the United States are confined within the narrow circle of domestic life, and their situation is in some respects one of extreme dependence, I have nowhere seen woman occupying a loftier position; and if I were asked, now that I am drawing to the close of this work, in which I have spoken of so many important things done by the Americans, to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of that people ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply - to the superiority of their women.
* Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America, volume 2, part 3, chapter 12