ined,
customs fleeting, public opinion often unsettled and powerless,
paternal authority weak, and marital authority contested. Under these
circumstances, believing that they had little chance of repressing in
woman the most vehement passions of the human heart, they held that
the surer way was to teach her the art of combating those passions for
herself. As they could not prevent her virtue from being exposed to
frequent danger, they determined that she should know how best to defend
it; and more reliance was placed on the free vigor of her will than
on safeguards which have been shaken or overthrown. Instead, then, of
inculcating mistrust of herself, they constantly seek to enhance their
confidence in her own strength of character. As it is neither possible
nor desirable to keep a young woman in perpetual or complete ignorance,
they hasten to give her a precocious knowledge on all subjects. Far
from hiding the corruptions of the world from her, they prefer that she
should see them at once and train herself to shun them; and they hold it
of more importance to protect her conduct than to be over-scrupulous of
her innocence.

Although the Americans are a very religious people, they do not rely
on religion alone to defend the virtue of woman; they seek to arm her
reason also. In this they have followed the same method as in several
other respects; they first make the most vigorous efforts to bring
individual independence to exercise a proper control over itself, and
they do not call in the aid of religion until they have reached the
utmost limits of human strength. I am aware that an education of this
kind is not without danger; I am sensible that it tends to invigorate
the judgment at the expense of the imagination, and to make cold and
virtuous women instead of affectionate wives and agreeable companions
to man. Society may be more tranquil and better regulated, but domestic
life has often fewer charms. These, however, are secondary evils, which
may be braved for the sake of higher interests. At the stage at which we
are now arrived the time for choosing is no longer within our control; a
democratic education is indispensable to protect women from the dangers
with which democratic institutions and manners surround them.

Chapter X: The Young Woman In The Character Of A Wife

In America the independence of woman is irrevocably lost in the bonds
of matrimony: if an unmarried woman is less constrained there than
e