The Relationship Between Liberty And Morality

Dr. Vishal Mangalwadi follows a discussion of Alexis De Tocqueville's observation that America is great because its women are great with this story from his own life in India: (emphasis added)

"A Non-Magisterial Judgment

As mentioned earlier in the book, we began our service to the poor in village Gatheora in 1976 by training Village Health Workers (VHWs). Dr. Mategaonker and his staff would come to our farm twice a week to teach village folk how to stay healthy, prevent diseases, and cure simple ailments. The village families wouldn't allow women to attend these classes,6 so we had to begin by training young men. After a few months, after we had bonded and become free with each other, the VHWs conveyed to us their considered opinion: "You Christians are very immoral."

"What do you mean?" I was taken aback, since the jury had reached this verdict after due deliberation. "How are we immoral?"

"You walk with your wives holding their hands," they explained "Our wives walk at least ten feet behind us. You take your sister-in-law to the market on your scooter. Our wives are too modest to sit behind our bicycles, and they cover their faces in front of our fathers, uncles, and older brothers."

I had no clue how to answer my accusers. But Vinay, my older brother, had lived there longer. He responded with brutal frankness: "Come on you guys! You know perfectly well that the truth is exactly the opposite. You do not allow your wives to uncover their faces in front of your fathers and brothers because you trust neither your father, nor your brothers, or your wives. I allow my wife to go to the market with my brother because I trust her and I trust my brother. Our wives can walk in the fields with us and visit you in your homes because of higher moral standards. You chain your wives to your kitchens and imprison them behind their veils because you are immoral."

I thought this was the end of our friendship, but to my utter amazement, every one of the VHWs agreed with Vinay without a whisper of protest. They may have remained skeptical about our morality, but their own moral standards they knew first hand. I was grateful for Vinay's insight, for I had never seen the connection between morality and liberty, morality and the status of women, and the status of women and the strength of a society. I should have known better because our village was less than twenty miles from Khajuraho, where every imaginable sexual act had been carved in stones to adorn Hindu temples. My ancestors' religion of sexual perversion had enslaved our women just as it did in the pre-Christian Greco-Roman civilization. Slavery was then sold as "morality." The consequence? Not one girl in our village had gone beyond the fifth grade because the nearest middle school was three miles away and it was too risky to send a girl so far out of sight. It took time for the VHWs to recognize that what they considered "morality" was, in fact, an enslavement of women. Morality is meant to liberate. Morality without liberty is slavery; liberty without morality is destructive.

[ 6] The only women who went to other peoples' farms were landless laborers from untouchable castes."

Now, go read the rest.