Comparing Shakespeare And Tocqueville's

In William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labor’s Lost, the four principal female characters are superior to their male counterparts, for they display maturity in the face of the men’s foolishness. Alexis de Tocqueville and John Locke also work to explore the status of women in relation to men. Like the women of Love’s Labor’s Lost, women in Tocqueville’s Democracy in America are superior to men. Unlike Shakespeare, Tocqueville portrays women as superior to men as instillers of democratic mores. He also argues that in order to have this superiority, women must place themselves in the inferior position within marriage. Furthermore, Tocqueville maintains the equality of the sexes, as does John Locke in his Second Treatise of Government, but unlike Locke, who claims that husband and wife

enter into a conjugal contract that allots both parties rights, Tocqueville justifies this equality by pointing to the equalizing effect of democracy. Finally, Locke differs from Tocqueville in that he while he argues that wives deserve as much honor as their husbands, he believes women to be the naturally inferior sex who must submit to the wills of their husbands.
In Love’s Labor’s Lost, Shakespeare portrays the Princess of France and her ladies-in-waiting as superior to King Ferdinand of Navarre and his lords. The reason for this distinction in status is because of the women’s maturity and the men’s absurdity. The contrast between the adult women and child-like men is apparent during the scene in which the men disguise themselves as Muscovites in order to woo the women (CST). The ladies see through the lords’ thinly-veiled attempt at courtship and maintain their composure throughout the scene, even tricking the men into confusing the identities of the women (CST). The men, however, embarrass themselves as they prance around the stage in absurd costumes speaking in equally absurd accents (CST). In this instance, as in the rest of the play, the women clearly are superior.
Tocqueville’s Democracy in America also depicts women as superior. However, unlike Shakespeare, Tocqueville argues that women’s superiority stems from their superior mores, ability to create mores, and the sacrifice they make to instill mores. Tocqueville believes that mores are the basis of American society and “it is a woman who makes mores” (Democracy in America, 563). He attributes great importance to women’s role in shaping mores because he believes that American “mores…make [their] democracy more or less regulated and prosperous” (Democracy in America, 295). American women have “pure mores” because they are educated so that they are able to “judge without illusion” the “vices and perils that society presents” (Democracy in America, 563). In this fundamental way, women are superior to men because of the purity of their mores. Moreover, Tocqueville states women are able to “repress…the most tyrannical passions of the human heart” (Democracy in America, 564). Thus, women are superior to men not only because they have “pure mores,” they are also superior because they have the unique ability to instill mores that civilize “the human heart.” Tocqueville concludes that “the singular prosperity and growing force of [America]…is… [because of] the superiority of its women” (Democracy in America 576). Thus, American women are superior to men because of their mores and capacity to create mores that regulate society’s passions.
Furthermore, the way in which women control and civilize men simultaneously demonstrates their superiority and inferiority to men. In order to instill the mores that prevent tyranny, women must become wives and mothers so that they can regulate their husbands and teach their children pure mores. American women are raised to be self-reliant, and when they marry, their “independence is irretrievably lost” (Democracy in America, 565). Even though they lose their autonomy, women willing enter into marriage and “[make] a sort of glory for themselves out of the voluntary abandonment of their wills, and…[find] their greatness in submitting on their own to the yoke” (Democracy in America, 575). Through their willing surrender to the “yoke” of marriage, women demonstrate their moral superiority because they sacrifice their independence in order to instill good mores into their children and husbands. However, by entering into marriage, “the wife submits to stricter obligations” as the “natural head of the conjugal association is the man…[and Americans] do not deny him the right to direct his mate” (Democracy in America, 565, 574). Thus, in marriage, a woman becomes inferior her husband because she must obey him. Nonetheless, she is also superior to him because she willing submits to marriage and because she instills mores in him and their children. Therefore, Tocqueville depicts women as both inferior and superior to men.
However, Tocqueville concludes that, in America, women and men are seen as equal. Tocqueville believes “democracy is destroying…the various inequalities to which society gives birth” (Democracy in America, 573). In America, democracy shows its equalizing effect as it “elevates woman and must…make her the equal of man” (Democracy in America, 573). Even though Americans “have carefully divided the functions of man and woman,” for example, women are limited to domestic occupations, “Americans…show the same esteem for the role of each [sex], and they consider them as beings whose value is equal although their destiny differs” (Democracy in America, 574, 576). Thus, despite women’s superiority or inferiority within certain spheres, overall, the American woman is equal to the American man.
Similar to Tocqueville, John Locke discusses married women and he concludes that both spouses are largely equal within marriage.

Locke begins by explaining that “paternal power,” or “power over children,” should not be properly called “paternal” because it “belong[s] to the mother too” (Second Treatise of Government, 31). The equality of the power of mother and father is evident as children have “a perpetual obligation of honoring their parents” (Second Treatise of Government, 37). Thus, pertaining to their children, husband and wife are equal. Furthermore, husband and wife are equal in marriage since “conjugal society is made by a voluntary compact between man and woman” (Second Treatise of Government, 43). In the marriage “compact,” both parties naturally have or are allotted rights so, for example, “the wife [is] in full and free possession of what by contract is her peculiar right” (Second Treatise of Government, 44). Locke even extends a wife’s right as far as to say that she “has in many cases a liberty to separate from [her husband], where natural right, or their contract allows it” (Second Treatise of Government, 44). Thus, concerning rights within marriage, men and women are

equal.
Nevertheless, Locke’s portrayal of women also echoes Tocqueville as he deems wives are inferior to their husbands in certain situations. Locke argues that although men and women share decision-making power in a marriage, “the last determination, i.e. the rule, should be placed…to the man’s share, as the abler and the stronger” (Second Treatise of Government, 44). Thus, just as Tocqueville depicts a wife as inferior to her husband because she must obey him, Locke portrays a woman as inferior within marriage as her husband makes decisions if both parties “have different wills” (Second Treatise of Government, 44). Locke’s rhetoric against female equality moves beyond Tocqueville as he believes men to be “the abler and the stronger” sex. Thus, Locke broadly considers wives to be equal to their husbands except he gives men the right to make final decisions.
Between Shakespeare’s Love’s Labor’s Lost, Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, and Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, women are depicted in a wide array of ways. While Shakespeare and Tocqueville generally portray women as superior, Tocqueville’s depiction also includes women as equal and inferior. Locke, unlike the other two, does not see women as superior, though he, like Tocqueville, believes them to be equal and inferior. Additionally, each writer uses different mechanisms to portray women in the ways they do. However, just because these three authors depict women in certain ways, it does not mean that their works accurately reflect women’s status then or now.