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2019 Wilford Sarah Jane 1240852 Ethesis This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Democratic Family, Democratic Womanhood, and Democratic Conditions in the Political Thought of Alexis de Tocqueville Wilford, Sarah Jane Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 30. Sep. 2021 King’s College London Department of Political Economy Democratic Family, Democratic Womanhood, and Democratic Conditions in the Political Thought of Alexis de Tocqueville Sarah Jane Wilford PhD in Politics September 2018 Abstract For Alexis de Tocqueville, liberty is at risk in democracy, but it can be secured by mores. The importance of mores is well established in existing scholarship, but the role of the domestic sphere in forming those mores has been largely neglected. This thesis fills the gap in the literature by arguing that the domestic sphere was a central component of Tocqueville’s democratic theory. Womanhood and family life were normative models of primary importance in Tocqueville’s associationalism because they generated the mores exercised across associative life. The domestic sphere contributes to associative life in two ways. First, the domestic sphere feeds other moderating forces as the initial, most proximate, and natural ‘school’ for citizens. Second, the domestic sphere establishes the habit of respecting authority, which is necessary to the perpetuation of mores across associative life. Analysing the domestic sphere elucidates the place of nature, authority, and other-regarding virtue within his democratic theory. For Tocqueville, sex differences and paternal authority could help to resist a total democratisation of the domestic sphere, safeguarding the moral work therein and benefitting liberty in a democracy. This thesis contributes to the scholarship on gender and family in Tocqueville by offering a comprehensive analysis of these themes. This thesis also explores the relationship between the domestic sphere and Tocqueville’s wider democratic theory, benefitting our understanding of his theory of associationalism and making the case that the domestic sphere is on par with acclaimed mediating elements, like civil associations, religion, and decentralisation. This discussion also contributes to scholarship on religion and individualism, which often overlooks gender and family. Lastly, this thesis evaluates how Tocqueville’s associationalism has been appropriated by more recent social scientists and suggests some lessons they could draw from a closer study of the place of the domestic sphere in his democratic theory. Table of Contents Acknowledgements ii List of Abbreviations iv Chapter 1. Introduction: Studying the Domestic Sphere and Democratic Society in Tocqueville 1 Womanhood and Family as Models and Why They Matter 3 Historiography 6 Methodology: Intellectual History and Contemporary Relevance 16 Thesis Structure 23 Chapter 2. Tocqueville’s Contexts: Answering the ‘woman question’, Exploring Womanhood in Jacksonian America, and Examining Tocqueville’s experiences 26 Introduction 26 Women and the Enlightenment Legacy 29 The Revolutionary Period 34 Napoleonic Period 38 Separate Spheres in the 1830s and 1840s 41 Exploring Womanhood in Jacksonian America 45 Feminine Features and Social Standing 46 The American Girl 49 The American Wife and Her Family 52 The American Spinster 62 Tracing Tocqueville’s interest in women, female companions, and the citoyenne 63 Conclusions from Contexts 79 Chapter 3. Tocqueville’s Model of Democratic Womanhood 81 Introducing Tocqueville’s Models 81 Democratic Girlhood 84 Democratic Wifehood 86 Sexual Morality and Fidelity 91 Equality of the Sexes and Gender Roles 95 Nature, Custom, and Gender Roles 98 Democratic Woman and Manliness 102 Valuing and Subordinating Virtuous Women 103 Conclusion: Virtues of the Democratic Woman 107 Chapter 4. Tocqueville’s Model of the Democratic Family and the Democratic Domestic Sphere 109 Democratic Family and Domestic Sphere 109 Social States and Familial Authority 111 Natural Family, Democratisation, and Authority 113 ii The ‘sweet pleasure’ of Democratic Family Life 119 Democratic Domestic Sphere 124 Family Spirit and Freedom in the Democratic Social State 130 Domestic Order: Democracy, Nature, and Authority 133 Chapter 5. Impact of Democracy on Womanhood and Family 137 Introduction 137 Individualism and the Domestic Sphere 140 Individualism and the Family Unit: the case of the frontier 142 Family Members and Individualism: Intergenerational Regard and Independent Reason 144 Individualism and Land: Property, Belonging, and Family Unity 150 Uniformity and the Domestic Sphere 155 Similar People 156 Striving to be Similar 157 Similarity and Democratic Reasoning 160 Mediocrity and the Domestic Sphere 164 Moral Mediocrity: Gendered Sacrifice and Courage in Democracies 167 Escaping Mediocrity: the Impact of Liberty and the Pursuit of Virtue 171 Impact of Democracy on the Domestic Sphere 177 Chapter 6. Impact of Womanhood and Family on Democracy 179 Democracy’s Need for Moderating Forces 182 Mores 186 Moderating Forces 188 Religion and the Domestic Sphere 202 Domestic Sphere and Tocqueville’s Democratic Theory 212 Chapter 7. Towards a more ‘Tocquevillian’ Social Science: Family, Gender, Loyalty, and Virtue in Modern Democratic Associationalism 215 Putnam and Social Capital 218 The Ostroms and Polycentricity 220 Nisbet and Communitarianism 222 Three Perspectives on Association: Tocqueville’s Critique and the Unity of Habit 225 Tocqueville’s Hope and Our Modern Democracies 238 Conclusion: How to be free 242 Bibliography 246 iii Acknowledgements Thank you to my supervisors Jeremy Jennings and Robin Douglass, for guiding this project. Thank you also to the examiners of my thesis, for their time and comments. Additionally, Adrian Blau, Gianna Englert, Joanne Paul, and Paul Wilford have my sincere appreciation, as they all acted as academic mentors and councillors during the course of writing this thesis, and each has had a profound intellectual impact on me. I am also appreciative of the financial support of various awards and scholarships. My acknowledgment is due to the Mercatus Center, Institute for Humane Studies, Adam Smith Institute, and Intercollegiate Studies Institute. I would also like to acknowledge the invitations to present my research during the course of my PhD studies; I welcomed the helpful comments that I received in each environment: Department of Political Economy Research Seminar at King’s College London, History of Political Ideas Early Career Seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, Colloquium on Market Institutions & Economic Processes at Classical Liberal Institute of New York University, Political Theory Project at Brown University, MANCEPT Workshop at University of Manchester, London Graduate Conference in the History of Political Thought at University of London, and Institute for Humane Studies Summer Graduate Research Colloquium at Chapman University. I am grateful for the fellowship and solidarity of the DPE PhD community that fortified me, both emotionally and intellectually, during the writing of this thesis. My inspiring colleagues offered friendship, encouragement, and conversation that made this project possible. Thanks are also due to my loving and supportive family—my parents, Jane and Sykes, and my siblings, Sykes, Paul, and Alyson. They have supported my flourishing, with unrelenting generosity, on every possible front: intellectually, financially, and spiritually. As my own models of courageous and selfless womanhood, Mom and Alyson have inspired me, throughout the course of my PhD studies, to muster great ferocity of will while maintaining gentleness of heart. I am grateful to my St Andrews family, whose loyal friendship and bizarre humour sustained the writing of this thesis, especially Kiran Kishore who enriched my home life during my PhD studies with camaraderie and comfort. Special acknowledgement and appreciation is also due to Robert Gledhill, whose steady patience and gentle kindness saw me through the final stretch. Lastly, Craig McNee receives my deepest gratitude, for his nurturing friendship, heartening loyalty, and guiding honesty, which have served me during nearly a decade of academic adventures. iv List of Abbreviations Primary Sources After 1840 Tocqueville on America after 1840: Letters and Other Writings,
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