Page "Democracy in America" Paragraph 18

Tocqueville was one of the first social critics to examine the situation of American women and to identify the concept of Separate Spheres.

The section Influence of Democracy on Manners Properly So Called of the second volume is devoted to his observations of women's status in American society.

He writes: " 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 that are always different.

" He argues that the collapse of aristocracy lessened the patriarchal rule in the family, such that unmarried women had a higher degree of independence.

Married women, by contrast, lost all independence " in the bonds of matrimony " as " in America paternal discipline is very relaxed and the conjugal tie very strict ".

Tocqueville considered the separate spheres of women and men a positive development, stating: " 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 women occupying a loftier position ; and if I were asked, (...) 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.