Student Question
What does "To My Dear and Loving Husband" reveal about Puritan beliefs and marriage?
Quick answer:
Bradstreet's "My Dear and Loving Husband" highlights the immense value Puritans placed on marriage. It also reveals that a Puritan marriage wasn't necessarily a dour, prudish affair. In fact, Bradstreet's language reveals a healthy respect for intimacy within marriage.
Today, we use the word "puritan" to describe an unnecessarily dogmatic approach to life. However, Bradstreet's poem cheerfully contradicts our modern ideas about Puritanism. In the poem, she tells us that she prizes her husband's love more than "whole mines of gold."
Bradstreet's words reveal her strong affection for her husband. Although Puritan women were expected to marry and bear children, Bradstreet's unabashedly passionate words suggest that, perhaps, Puritan women found some measure of happiness in doing so.
Still, this portrayal of love and sensuality seems incongruent with what we know of history: the practice of marrying for love didn't become popular until the Enlightenment era.
Interestingly, the Enlightenment principles of liberty and personal happiness served as the driving force for the Industrial Revolution. Young people of marriageable age moved to the cities, seeking employment. As a result, the Western world experienced a seismic cultural shift.
The idea of marrying...
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for love (and choosing one's own spouse) became entrenched in the collective mind. However, it must be remembered that Bradstreet wrote her poem prior to the age of industrialization.
Puritans depended on an agricultural economy, and children were critical to the survival of the family farm. The idea of marrying for love would have raised eyebrows then. So, how do we explain Bradstreet's words? Consider the final four lines of the poem.
Thy love is such I can no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persever,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.
In these lines, Bradstreet stresses the importance of love in marriage. She maintains that she will never be able to repay her husband for his affection and loyalty. And, she hopes that the strength of their union continues into the afterlife.
Her words, although incompatible with Puritan views about marriage, reveal the secret yearnings of the heart. Although Puritans believed that the ties of love ended upon death, Bradstreet's poem quite clearly reveals that the powerful desire for eternal love is universal and timeless.