s 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
opin