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.

Chapter XIII: That The Principle Of Equality Naturally Divides The
Americans Into A Number Of Small Private Circles

It may probably be supposed that the final consequence and necessary
effect of democratic institutions is to confound together all the
members of the community in private as well as in public life, and to
compel them all to live in common; but this would be to ascribe a
very coarse and oppressive form to the equality which originates in
democracy. No state of society or laws can render men so much alike,
but that education, fortune, and tastes will interpose some differences
between them; and, though different men may sometimes find it their
interest to combine for the same purposes, they will never make it their
pleasure. They will therefore always tend to evade the provisions of
legislation, whatever they may be; and departing in some one respect
from the circle within which they were to be bounded, they will set up,
close by the great political community, small private circles, united
together by the similitude of their conditions, habits, and manners.

In the United States the citizens have no sort of pre-eminence over each
other; they owe each other no mutual obedience or respect; they all meet
for the administration of justice, for the government of the State, and
in general to treat of the affairs which concern their common welfare;
but I never heard that attempts have been made to bring them all to
follow the same diversions, or to amuse themselves promiscuously in the
same places of recreation. The Americans, who mingle so readily in their
political assemblies and courts of justice, are wont on the contrary
carefully to separate into small distinct circles, in order to indulge
by themselves in the enjoyments of private life. Each of them is willing
to acknowledge all his fellow-citizens as his equals, but he will only
receive a very limited number of them amongst his friends or his guests.
Th