Abigail Adams has been an icon for women’s rights during the colonial and early years of the United States. Her revolutionary ideals, however, did not remain constant throughout her life and at the time of her death, she was more conservative and held fewer republican virtues than her contemporaries would have liked.
The wife of John Adams, Abigail Smith was born in the year 1744 in Weymouth, Massachusetts to the Reverend William and Mrs. Elizabeth Quincy Smith. Her parents married in 1740 and Abigail was their second of four children. Her rearing and the society in which she lived help to found her great opinions concerning domesticity, women’s rights, slavery and politics.
The Cult of Domesticity
Although the movement dubbed the “cult of domesticity” had not emerged during Abigail’s time, the ideals were nevertheless present and represented characteristics which women strove for. According to this idea, women should be pious, pure, submissive and domestic.
Abigail was raised as a contributor to the family’s domestic chores and needs. This followed her to adulthood, when even as first lady, she took great pride in tasks which servants were usually employed.
Naturally enough, Abigail believed not only in hard work at home, but that the home was of primary importance to society as a whole.
Women’s Rights
Where Abigail veered off course from contemporary ideals was in the area of women’s rights. As a child, Abigail was surrounded by books and encouraged to read often.
John Adams, when he met Abigail (he was twenty-four, she was fifteen), initially believed that the Smith sisters were too intelligent to make good wives. Abigail, for her part saw him as a talkative, opinionated and a short and clumsy sort of fellow. As their friendship grew into romance, John began to appreciate her intellect and she saw in him the preparation to accept her as an intellectual equal. They married in Weymouth, Massachusetts on October 25, 1764.
She believed that the education of women was the most important advancement that could be made for her sex; it was a lack of education and equal opportunities which kept women and blacks subordinate and unequal to white men.
Slavery
While she was growing up, Abigail’s family owned slaves though they were treated more like servants, whom the children and mistress of the house worked alongside.
Abigail found white men fighting for their freedom, who found it acceptable to subjugate black slaves and deny them the same freedom, hypocritical. She believed that all men (and women) were completely equal intellectually, given the same education as white men.
Politics
Though she found the French to be immoral and disgusting and Londoners too extravagant, the years spent abroad changed John and Abigail Adams. They returned to the United States in 1788 with a taste for the pomp and circumstance of Europe.
Abigail believed that social equality was as much of a threat to liberty as a monarchy. Also, she believed political opposition to be the same as disloyalty to the country. Finally, she questioned the safety of free elections and supported the Alien and Sedition Acts which kept the influence of foreigners at bay and allowed the government to imprison anyone exercising their freedom of speech in opposition to her husband’s administration.
These basic beliefs make Abigail Adams an incomplete and puzzling revolutionary. As Americans were granted greater freedom, she opposed such liberty. One wonders what she would have thought about later movements in women’s rights and the political evolution of the United States.
Nash, Roderick; Graves, G. From these Beginnings: a Biographical Approach to American History. Vol 1, Seventh ed. University of California: Santa Barbara. 2005.
The Cult of Domesticity and True Womanhood. http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/386/truewoman.html
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