Of the nine statues that line the Commonwealth Avenue mall, only one is dedicated to women: the Boston Women’s Memorial. There, a life-sized bronze statue of Abigail Adams faces the Public Garden, her arms crossed.
Guide Leah Sause from Hub Town Tours said that posture and gaze are no coincidence; Adams is “staring directly at George Washington down Commonwealth Avenue, directly challenging those revolutionary ideals.”
Next to Abigail Adams is the text from her now-famous private letter dated March 31, 1776 to her husband John Adams: “I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands.”
‘Remember the ladies’
While “remember the ladies” is often used as a rallying cry for women’s rights and interpreted as advocacy for suffrage, some historians say the true meaning is likely more nuanced. The idea? That tyranny wasn’t merely a distant political issue involving a corrupt king or empire; it could show up as domestic tyranny at home.
“I think that people today want ’remember the ladies’ to mean, ’Give women political rights, give women the right to vote,’” said Cassandra Good, an associate professor of history at Marymount University. “But it’s actually something a lot more basic. What she’s talking about is basically giving wives better protection from abuse by their husbands because she’s going on to say all men would be tyrants if they could.”
While John Adams didn’t directly act on his wife’s request, her call to include women in the narrative of America’s founding — and her ability to push boundaries — left a mark.
Restraints at home
Historians note that in March of 1776, when Adams made that plea, married women had few legal rights under the doctrine of coverture.
“This legal term … determines married women’s role in the British colonies and in England at this time, and basically puts the wife under the legal control of the husband,” Good said. “Her identity is subsumed under the husband’s.”
The Revolution hadn’t officially begun, but ideas of independence were spreading. John Adams was stationed in Philadelphia at the Constitutional Convention, while Abigail Adams managed the farm and cared for the couple’s young children in Braintree.
Sara Georgini, editor for the Adams Family Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society, said there are layers to the famous phrase.
“One, she’s saying, please remember the women have made equal contributions to this revolution,” Georgini said, standing next to the original letter, which is enclosed in a glass case along with Abigail’s cloth pocket and jewelry.
“Just because you’re off making laws doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have a say in how they’re enacted,” Georgini continued. “So first, remembering women have equal citizenship, even if, secondly, under coverture, they really can’t own or bequeath property.”
Gender historians generally agree that Adams is talking about better treatment by husbands within marriage, Georgini said.
“Protecting from an abuse of power doesn’t mean just a king — it could be in your household as well,” Georgini said.
Good said the right to vote wouldn’t have been women’s top concern.
“If they don’t have a right to own property or be free of physical or sexual abuse, those would be more pressing issues,” Good said.
And John’s response?
Historians say John and Abigail had a happy marriage. Yet his response to the request that he “remember the ladies” was “dismissive” and a little playful, said Good.
“As to your extraordinary Code of Laws, I cannot but laugh,” John Adams wrote back to his wife.
Only a small part of the population could vote, if they were male property owners, so women’s suffrage would have been radical. At least 70 years would pass before suffrage was debated in public at the Seneca Falls Convention.
“I think that John Adams probably couldn’t have changed much if he wanted to,” Good said. “At the Constitutional Convention, they don’t even discuss women the entire time. It’s not even on the table.”
While he didn’t take public actions to advance women’s rights, it’s clear that John did value the political opinions of Abigail and other female relatives, Georgini said. While he was in London, he entrusted his daughter Nabby to decode sensitive diplomatic letters between him and Thomas Jefferson.
“Is it a great response? No. But does he have some kind of course of actions that point to the role of women in his life? Yes,” said Georgini.
The letter reflects Abigail’s innovation. She was John’s “one-woman cabinet,” Georgini said. She found loopholes around the restrictions of her time: while running the family household, she speculated in bonds, dabbled in a black-market trade operations and, in the same letter, references learning to make gunpowder.
Abigail was part of a network of women who wrote about and discussed politics.
“Women make excellent political thinkers in the American Revolution. Read all the women that you can because they are naturally suspicious of power and tyranny,” Georgini said.
A modern plea
While there is a “long history of people misunderstanding” Abigail’s quote, it can still have applications to modern times, according to Good.
“I think that perhaps the broadest possible meaning of ‘remember the ladies’ is when you are talking about politics or talking about history, don’t just talk about men — that you have to include women in the story,” she said.
