Custom and Tradition Prevail
Women’s contributions to the Revolutionary War were vital. They not only maintained their roles at home, but also supported and encouraged their husbands to join the war while taking on their husbands’ domestic responsibilities, such as learning how to farm. While they were socially recognized for their contributions, they were quickly forgotten when women began to request government representation. Politics had always been a male domain, so the idea of allowing women into the political sphere made men wary. They didn’t want to give up their influence and were worried about the impact women would have on governmental policy. While they created many different arguments to fight this idea, the true reason behind the denial of women’s rights to vote was based on custom and tradition.
Many women pushed for their right to vote in this time period— but their efforts were futile as they were met with constant resistance. Despite this resistance, they did not remain silent. Women like Abigail Adams continued writing to their husbands to ask for more representation. The women were polite in their requests, wanting to be seen as political equals, but the men were often harsh, dismissing their opinions with mockery and ridicule. Even when writing back to his wife, John Adams did not take the idea of remembering the ladies too kindly.1 While women did surprisingly have the right to vote in New Jersey, this was a short-lived victory. Even after 30 years of this policy being in place, it was stripped away due to the pushback from the men who were creating false narratives in an attempt to confine their wives and other women back in their traditional feminine roles in society.
Ultimately, the decision not to grant women the right to vote and, in the case of New Jersey, revoke this right wasn’t because women were unintelligent or unfit, but because it wasn’t tradition or customary for women to be allowed in the political sphere. In 1790, an author writing in the New York Magazine commented on why women are still condemned to remain in ignorance and forced into domestic roles. The author answered this question by saying, “It is because the majority of men have an interest in concealing knowledge from them.’’2 Men benefited from denying women representation as they would remain in sole power over the government. Men benefited not only at work but also at home as their wives would remain in their domestic roles, caring for the household and children. The arguments used by men and the letters from the time clearly show that women were denied the right to vote due to custom and tradition, with men insisting they stay out of what was deemed a male domain.
1“John Adams to Abigail Adams, 14 April 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-01-02-0248. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 1, December 1761 – May 1776, ed. Lyman H. Butterfield. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963, pp. 381–383.]
2Alexandar, History of Women, 2:336; New York Magazine, February 1790, 90.