Talk To Your Man Like Abigail Adams

Abigail Adams was certainly an accomplished woman.  An Englishman who visited her and her husband John Adams in Massachusetts told her she was “the most accomplished Lady, he had seen since he left England.”

It’s almost indecent what an intimate glimpse we have of the Adams’s marriage, due to the numerous letters (most written during lengthy separations) we have today going back and forth between them, covering topics both practical, political, familial and intimate.  So what can the 2nd first lady (and 1st feminist, some say) teach us about our men?  Plenty.

• Tell him what you want. Don’t expect him to guess!  Abigail had real concerns during their courtship about John’s tendencies towards arrogance.  She set out her concerns in a letter and demanded an explanation, telling him, “I expect you to clear up these matters without being in the least saucy.” 
• Adopt a pleasant tone. Adams’s biographer says she often introduced a discussion of weighty or controversial matters with a joke.  Her famous “Remember the Ladies” letter is a good example.  Are colonial women really going to rise up and rebel if they don’t have a voice in the new government?  Hardly.  But Abigail gets her point across.
• Say what’s in your heart. If you can’t say what you really feel in one medium, switch to another.  Abigal and John were forced to communicate by letters due to numerous lengthy separations, but even this had its upside, as you can see in Abigail’s words to her husband:  “My pen is always freer than my tongue.  I have wrote many things to you that I suppose I never could have talk’d.”
• Never criticize your man in public. Abigail was a preacher’s kid, and her father taught her to watch what she said. He taught her “To say all the handsome Things she could of Persons but no evil.”  This goes for your man, too!
• Don’t gossip. Abigail was raised with the advice to “Make Things rather than Persons the Subjects of Conversation.”  Now, there is definitely some gossip in the letters Abigail wrote to her husband.  But she never gossiped about her man.  And neither should you.

You may view the rest of the post at, The Modern Mrs. Darcy.

Used with permission.