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 as a 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.