Women, Public Life, and American Prosperity Theme Analysis

When Elizabeth Cady Stanton first delivered her “Address on Woman’s Rights” in 1848, most women around the world couldn’t vote or hold property, and only rarely could they pursue a real education. All the while, their male counterparts attended seminaries and universities, voted in elections, and lived public lives (as opposed to domestic ones). Stanton took great issue with the fact that American women were forced to languish in their homes, never meeting their full potential, while American society developed without them. She believed that the vice, racism, and inequality in the U.S. could be remedied if American women were allowed to play an active role in society. Stanton’s speech suggests that as long as women remain stunted and “half developed”—due to being barred from equal participation in public life—the U.S. will suffer politically, socially, and diplomatically.

Much of Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s speech calls attention to the issues and ruptures in American society. By highlighting the failings of American society—war, drunkenness, immorality, and the upholding of slavery—Stanton was offering to her audience a rousing call to action. The U.S., in her estimation, was at a low point, and it could only be raised up again through the struggle for women’s rights. A form of government that exists “without the consent of the governed” cannot uplift itself and prosper. “There seems now to be a kind of moral stagnation in our midst,” Stanton says of the current state of American society. “War, slavery, drunkenness, licentiousness and gluttony have been dragged naked before the people [and] we hug these monsters to our arms.” In this quotation, Stanton is alluding to the issues plaguing American society in the mid-1840s—among them racism, war with Mexico, greed (fueled by the California gold rush in the West), and an absence of temperance laws. At the time of Stanton’s speech, there were indeed a great many conflicts and tensions rocking America, which was still a relatively young nation comprised of just 30 states. Stanton was an abolitionist, or an opponent of slavery, and a pacifist who opposed war and violence. But the U.S. of 1840 was defined by the institution of slavery, and the country was involved in foreign conflicts in the name of adding land to its territory and reaping the resources that belonged to others. In Stanton’s estimation, the fact that women’s “rights and interests [were] wholly overlooked” was contributing to the unhappiness of the American family, as well as the “drear and dark” state of American society more broadly. Half of the United States’ population couldn’t participate in elections or have any fair say in their country’s trajectory—and Stanton suggested that women could have a unique role in solving the problems blighting the U.S. if they were allowed to participate fully in society.

By highlighting how the U.S. was suffering without women’s full participation, Stanton forecasted more wars and moral transgressions unless women earned the right to shape the society in which they lived. “How shall we account for this [wicked] state of things?” Stanton asks, before answering her own question: “Depend upon it the degradation of women is the secret of all this woe, the inactivity of her head and her heart.” In other words, Stanton is saying that the “secret” of American society’s failings is rooted in how it treats its female population. By resigning women to “inactivity” and denying them the chance to pursue educations, to vote, and to put their “heart[s]” into the betterment of American society, America has doomed itself. “As long as the women of this nation remain but half developed in mind and body,” Stanton argues, America will suffer from a moral lack that penetrates every aspect of society. But if women secure the right to vote and to participate in public life, Stanton argues, they might be able to “soften down” the nation’s violence and “[refine its] vulgarity.” The instant women are allowed to “claim all the rights of a citizen,” Stanton argues, they will “buckle on [their] armor and fight in defence of [their] country.” Women are just as “wise and patriotic” as men—and once women are allowed to use their voices and their votes to influence American society, Stanton claims, the country will begin to find redemption and prosperity.

Throughout history, countries around the world have seen men turn to women “in great cris[e]s of national affairs”—Stanton cites the infiltration of “French revolutionary and atheistical opinions” into English society, which was remedied by the religious writer Hannah More’s writings against “these destructive influences.” Stanton also offers up the story of Joan of Arc, who led France in a war against their English occupiers and helped to deliver her country’s independence. Through these examples of how women have bettered their societies, Stanton suggests that American society, too, will ascend to new heights and eradicate its political and moral woes if women are allowed to have voices. When women can at last participate fully in society, Stanton argues, society will “fulfill its destiny” and reach its true potential.