Editing Democracy in America (section)

===Situation of women===
Tocqueville was one of the first social critics to examine the situation of U.S. women and to identify the concept of [[separate spheres]].<ref name="kerber1988">{{cite journal |last1= Kerber |first1= Linda K. |year= 1988 |title= Separate Spheres, Female Worlds, Woman's Place: The Rhetoric of Women's History |journal= The Journal of American History |volume= 75 |issue= 1 |pages= 9–39|publisher= University of North Carolina Press|doi= 10.2307/1889653|jstor= 1889653 }} Full text available [http://faculty.uml.edu/sgallagher/separate_spheres.htm online]</ref> The section ''Influence of Democracy on Manners Properly So Called'' of the second volume is devoted to his observations of women's status in U.S. 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."<ref>{{cite book|last= Tocqueville |first= Alexis de |author-link1= Alexis de Tocqueville |title= Democracy in America|year= 1840 |publisher= Saunders and Otley |location= London | chapter = Chapter XII: How the Americans understand the Equality of the sexes | url= https://archive.org/details/democracyinamer13tocqgoog |page= [https://archive.org/details/democracyinamer13tocqgoog/page/n116 101]}}</ref>

He argues that the collapse of [[aristocracy]] lessened the [[Patriarchy|patriarchal]] rule in the family where fathers would control daughters' marriages, meaning that women had the option of remaining unmarried and retaining a higher degree of independence. Married women, by contrast, lost all independence "in the bonds of matrimony" as "in America paternal discipline [by the woman's father] is very relaxed and the conjugal tie very strict."<ref>{{cite book|last= Tocqueville |first= Alexis de |title= Democracy in America|year= 1840 |publisher= Saunders and Otley |location= London | chapter = Chapter X: The young Woman in the Character of a Wife | url= https://archive.org/details/democracyinamer13tocqgoog |pages= [https://archive.org/details/democracyinamer13tocqgoog/page/n94 79]–81}}</ref> Yet despite this lack of independence, he believed America would "raise woman and make her more and more the equal of man" and praised America for having more legal protections for women than in France.<ref name="kerber1988" /> Tocqueville believed women would be contributors to America's prosperity and strength despite the limitations of the time, stating:<ref name="kerber1988"/>

<blockquote>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.<ref>{{cite book|last= Tocqueville |first= Alexis de |title= Democracy in America|year= 1840 |publisher= Saunders and Otley |location= London | chapter = Chapter XII: How the Americans understand the Equality of the sexes | url= https://archive.org/details/democracyinamer13tocqgoog |page= [https://archive.org/details/democracyinamer13tocqgoog/page/n121 106]}}</ref></blockquote>