When Abigail Adams writes this to her husband, she is
quoting part of a line from Alexander Pope. Here is a bit more of the line she is
quoting:
She,
who ne'er answers till a Husband cools,
262 Or, if she rules him, never shows
she rules;
263 Charms by accepting, by submitting sways,
264 Yet
has her humour most, when she
obeys;
To me, what Adams
means here is that women are supposed to (and are able to) get their way by doing what
they are told. They can "charm" the men by accepting (or seeming to accept) what the
men say. They can "sway" them (persuade them) by appearing to submit (to give in). She
is saying that women do have ways of getting what they want even when men try to keep
them down. Before she quotes Pope, she writes
readability="11">
we have it in our power, not only to free
ourselves, but to subdue our masters, and, with out violence, throw both your natural
and legal authority at our feet
;
I think that what she
means, then, is that men should give women the vote and give them equal rights in part
because women already have power that they an use.
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