Akers describes Abigail Adams as "the nation's best informed woman on public affairs, while never overstepping.the line nature had drawn between the sexes." This is the books main idea of course, based on the life of Abigail Adams. She influenced her husband and second president, John Adams as well as her son and sixth president, John Quincy Adams. Akers portrays how John Adams saw Abigail as an intellectual equal in the confines in their own home. Her political philosphy was as wise and unpandering as her husband's. Often they would talk of politics, Abigail perhaps the superior in this subject. When they came to a conflict in ideas, Abigail gently persuaded her husband in his views. Abigail pressed John on the importance of emancipation of women but never went beyond him or a few close friends. "She could not expect to be more than a private observer and supporter of her husband's political career." She gently taunted John of those few queens who had ruled as monarchs and had been generally good sovereigns. Thus, she wanted republican women to be good sovereigns. Abigail declared to her husband, "my ambition will extend no further than Reigning in the Heart of my husband." She thought women should work as hard for a voice in their male-dominated society as to preserve what they had already attained. Though Abigail encouraged other women to publish works such as Judith Sargent Murray's "On the Equality of the Sexes" she herself never overstepped the line.

             Akers also depicts the life of American women during the American Revolution. He describes their lives in contrast with their male counter-parts. Women were expected to bare children and reside compliently under the support of their father or husband. Few women of this time were educated in areas other than maintaining their house and keeping their husband and children healthy. Those who were educated were expected to stay at home and impress on their sons the art of politics and such.