Remember the Ladies

On March 31, 1776, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband John in Philadelphia: 'In the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.' John wrote back that he couldn't help but laugh. He told her the men knew better than to repeal their 'masculine systems.' She replied, drily, that she was more than a little saucy. The exchange is often cited as a moment of proto-feminism. What it actually shows is a marriage of intellectual equals who disagreed profoundly about the meaning of the liberty they were both fighting for.