Comparing Anne Bradstreet's To My Dear And Loving Husband

In the poem, “To My Dear and Loving Husband”, the speaker proclaims her profound and passionate love towards her husband only to illuminate the value of a mans figure in a woman’s life during the 1700’s. The poet Anne Bradstreet, brings forth this essence of emotional attachment and dependency through the use of unadorned syntax, declarative tone, imagery and repetition to send her message of her undying loyal love.

The poem begins with the image of unity between husband and wife. The aspect of being entitled to one is conveyed with a couplet, “... then surely we...then thee”, the subservient speaker characterize herself to be crafted into this self proving predominate marriage. To continue, her rhyme scheme justifies a religion and how she can never repay such a gift of pure love to God so

“...heavens reward thee manifold, I pray”. She is forever bound to be thanking and pleading how grateful she is to be blessed with such a satisfying and over qualifying love, that in a sense of character development she loses her independence and identity. The syntax symbolically reflects the morals and virtues of a religious marriage, since there is only one man and woman for a marriage until death does them part, “ If ever two were one, then surely we” they are loyal to each other through all the hardships and materialism of the world. Which also contributes to how wholesome and tireless her fondness is towards her matrimony.
For this reason, the speaker consecutively reassures the audience that materialism will never compromise her affection towards her husband.

To illustrate, she repetitively announces how literal aspects of her environment cannot overcome the gratitude she receives from being a wife, “gold, riches, recompense, repay” cannot grasp her monogamy since, “I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold”. Which ironically does not contribute to the necessities of the lifestyle the author had during her time period, in an era of such economic demand and barriers for the english settlers. She conveys this declarative tone that it enhances the emotional attachment in the poem, “My love is such that Rivers cannot quench”. As a result, her belief in an afterlife actually outlines why the speaker is so persistent in her loyalty towards her husband. She steers clear from identifying herself as her own, and instead categorizes herself into this dependent woman with “we”, that if she tends to her husband with the utmost endearment they will be both rewarded in the afterlife, “ that when we live no more, we may live ever”, the real reward is not monetary but spiritual

reassurance.
In a final analysis, the delicate and domesticated woman that is characterized as the speaker, gives a declaration of submission. The narrative seems to be directed towards the husband but in a way it is a self awareness profile of the identity she has to live up to, “If ever wife was happy in a man compare with me, ye women if you can” by challenging the intensity of her affection, love goes from being a natural stimulation to a compulsive necessity in her marriage. The speaker is extensively enforcing how she is in love, with her loving husband yet her husband's affection is never justified in the poem itself. His outlook is vacant for she is just voluntarily grateful for being in love. The unwavering persona clearly leaves a modern day audience questioning how pure her devotion truly is. Can the culture she was exposed to influence the speaker to accept this identity of pleasing another before herself, only to be accepted into the golden gates of heaven in the afterlife? Or is it identified that pure love can coexist in a world of corruption and distortion? All that is clearly stated and recognized is that her love is a satisfying one, that only her dear husband can bestow.