Five years after Abigail Smith married John Adams, the American colonies adopted the British law of coverture. This law held that no female person had a legal identity. Married women owned nothing—not even the clothes on their backs. More importantly, they had no rights over their own bodies, or custody of the children they bore.

Abigail’s marriage was based on mutual respect, and she understood how lucky she was. She witnessed families torn apart by a husband’s drunkenness, lack of employment, temper, and/or money mismanagement. Abigail’s famous ‘remember the ladies’ letter to her husband in which she implores him to “not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands,” speaks directly to the law of coverture. This was the women’s rights issue of her time—remnants of which still exist in the year 2024.

Presented by Chautauqua Scholar Jessica Downing-Ford