To My Dear and Loving Husband

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1678

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

True Love as Equal Companionship

The most dominant theme in “To My Dear and Loving Husband” is the ideal of love as equal companionship between husband and wife (with the underlying Puritan theology, this ideal was necessarily heteronormative). The speaker explores the idea of reciprocity and equality within the marital bond, repeatedly suggesting that these qualities are what make the relationship fulfilling.

The speaker emphasizes this ideal from the very beginning of the poem. She echoes the Biblical injunction, found both in the Old and New Testaments, that husbands and wives must become “one flesh” (King James Bible, Genesis 2:24; Mark 10:8) when she celebrates that “If ever two were one” (Line 1, emphasis added), then “surely” (Line 1) she and her husband are so. She then follows this assertion with twin statements about how her husband’s love for her and her own for him mirror one another: “If ever man were loved by wife, then thee / If ever wife was happy in a man / Compare with me, ye women, if you can” (Lines 2-4). Her love for her husband is therefore special not just due to the strength of her own feelings, but due to how her feelings are returned in full.

She also stresses the sheer strength of the spousal affection, making it clear that both husband and wife are eager and willing participants within their union. She assures that “[her] love is such that rivers cannot quench” (Line 7), suggesting that her love is inexhaustible and cannot be satisfied or bound by any natural laws. Likewise, she celebrates her husband’s love as something that she “can no way repay” (Line 9) because it is also inexhaustible. It would instead take the powers of “the heavens” (Line 10)—God himself—to adequately reward him.

In writing a love poem in praise of her marriage—and in directly addressing her husband throughout—Bradstreet breaks with many of the typical tropes of English love poetry at the time. In the 16th and 17th centuries, it was common for such poetry to center upon unrequited or otherwise forbidden love, with the (usually male) lyric speaker lamenting the unattainability of his cruel mistress, or trying to coax the object of his affections into surrendering to his advances. In rejecting celebrations of illicit love in favor of valorizing the marital bond, Bradstreet treats marriage with the same idealism and romanticism usually reserved for non-marital relations during the period.

The Priceless Nature of Love

In the middle of the poem, the speaker focuses on the priceless nature of true love, reflecting upon how even the most valuable earthly possessions are meaningless in comparison to her marriage. To illustrate this point, she makes hyperbolic comparisons that contrast worldly wealth with emotional fulfillment.

In Line 5, the speaker intones, “I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold.” Because gold is both a highly-prized commodity and the most common material for wedding rings, the line is infused with a potential double symbolism: While earthly gold represents wealth and luxury, the speaker shuns it in favor of what gold can represent—the commitment between husband and wife. She follows this claim with another rejection of wealth, telling her husband that she prefers his love to “all the riches that the East doth hold” (Line 6). “The East,” in the 17th-century imagination, represents fabled excess and luxury goods, such as spices, that the empires of the Western world were competing for at the time. In claiming that even “all the riches” of the “East” are worthless compared to her husband’s love, the speaker emphasizes still further how highly she prizes her bond with him.

Furthermore, both the “whole mines of gold” (Line 5) and the Eastern “riches” (Line 6) represent valuable commodities that can be bought and sold—in comparison, her husband’s love cannot be procured with any worldly currency, rendering it beyond price. While gold and other riches are desirable, they are also finite. In contrast, the speaker’s love is limitless, “such as rivers cannot quench” (Line 7), and her husband’s love is something that “can no way” (Line 9) be repaid, as though it were a bottomless debt. Thus, in contrasting worldly materialism with the immeasurable (and thus superior) nature of marital love, the speaker proudly suggests that she and her husband possess the truest form of wealth.

The Connection Between Love and Spirituality

While the speaker values her marital bond for its reciprocity and pricelessness, their love also has a strong spiritual component. This element is highlighted through Biblical allusions and in the poem’s closing lines, adding yet more thematic importance to the marital love the poem celebrates.

The first Biblical allusion, as previously mentioned, appears in the poem’s opening line, echoing the Biblical definition of marriage of husband and wife becoming “one flesh” (King James Bible, Genesis 2:24; Mark 10:8). In opening the poem with, “If ever two were one, then surely we [are]” (Line 1, emphasis added), the speaker immediately signals her spiritual preoccupations by framing her marriage as simultaneously earthly and heavenly. The second Biblical allusion appears in Line 7—“My love is such that rivers cannot quench”—mirroring a verse in the famous Song of Solomon: “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it” (King James Bible, Song of Solomon 8:7). This allusion elevates her love by suggesting that it is as passionate and worthy of fame as that of the Biblical account.

Toward the poem’s close, the speaker invokes the ideas of God and the afterlife. She claims she cannot hope to personally “repay” (Line 9) her husband’s love, since it is limitless and beyond earthly price, so she “pray[s]” (Line 10) for God’s assistance, asking “the heavens” to “reward” (Line 10) her husband in ways a mere mortal cannot. Lastly, the speaker characterizes her earthly marital bond as a key to spiritual salvation, urging, “Then while we live, in love let’s so persever / That when we live no more, we may live ever” (Lines 11-12). In directly linking their love’s “perseve[rance]” with eternal life, the speaker asserts that marital love is not just the key to physical or emotional satisfaction but also a means of serving God faithfully until death.