To My Dear and Loving Husband

Though the poem is a single stanza, that stanza has a discrete beginning, middle, and end, the narrative pattern corresponding with a three-part thematic structure: Lines 1-4 emphasize the profundity and loving reciprocity in the speaker’s marriage; Lines 5-10 explore the marriage’s pricelessness and transcendent quality; and Lines 11-12 affirm its spiritual necessity and eternal importance. The tone is forthright but complex—at once fervent, jubilant, tender, and intimate.

The speaker opens by reflecting upon the depth and mutuality of the love she and her husband share. The first four lines are exultations, comprising three conditional if-then statements each that convey, in essence, “If ever a love were supreme, then it is ours.” In the first line, she celebrates that “If ever two were one, then surely we”; therefore, their love epitomizes the Biblical injunction that in a marital union, husband and wife “shall be one flesh” (King James Bible, Genesis 2:24; Mark 10:8). The speaker then celebrates the sincerity of her feelings, assuring her husband, “If ever man were loved by wife” (Line 2), then surely he is loved by her. More important, though, are the next two lines, where she describes their love as equally sincere and strong: “If ever wife was happy in a man / Compare with me, ye women, if you can” (Lines 3-4, emphasis added). Line 3 suggests the speaker is the happiest wife of all; though it includes no “then…” component, the line can stand on its own with the implicit conclusion, “then I.” However, the fourth line can also be read as a conclusion to the third line’s hypothesis, and it emphatically punctuates the section with a boast and a dare: If any women believe themselves content with their husbands (Line 3), then the speaker challenges those women to “Compare” (Line 4) their happiness with hers, implying that no other woman’s happiness could ever equal her own.

After this fleeting mock address to other women, the speaker moves into the poem’s middle section by once more addressing her husband and reflecting upon their love’s pricelessness and boundlessness. She tells him that his love is worth more to her “than whole mines of gold” (Line 5), and dismisses “all the riches that the East doth hold” (Line 6) as inferior in comparison. With both comparisons, the speaker presents their love as more valuable than material wealth, suggesting their companionship is the most important possession of all. These comparisons also extend the first four lines’ idea that the speaker’s marriage is supreme and unprecedented; it not only outshines all other marriages—it outshines all earthly existence and its material riches. But any apparent self-aggrandizement is playful in nature, and the statements’ unabashed hyperbole communicates passion rather than making such claims literally and in earnest. Though the speaker does believe her own marriage is special, the poem ultimately celebrates true love itself, insofar as it is sanctified within Christian matrimony: The speaker and her husband’s love surpasses earthly value because all marital love is rooted in divine realities. She emphasizes this metaphysical ascendancy with yet another hyperbole, describing her love as boundless, a force so strong that it is “such that rivers cannot quench” (Line 7). The only thing that she can accept as “recompense” (Line 8), or payment, for her own strong love is her husband’s love in return. However, she also praises her husband’s love as something she “can no way repay” (Line 9), suggesting that however limitless and strong her own love may be, her husband deserves even more.

While the poem’s first seven lines exalt the speaker’s marriage (and, perhaps indirectly and playfully, the spouses themselves), Lines 8-10 mark a shift in tone as the speaker transitions toward humility in the face of love’s immensity and preciousness. The closing lines take on a more spiritual dimension, ushering in the last thematic section of the poem. Faced with the impossibility of ever fully “repay[ing]” (Line 9) her husband for the joy and companionship he has given her, the speaker instead asks “the heavens” (Line 10) to reward her husband “manifold” (Line 10), or many times over, on her behalf; the petition contrasts her own mortal powerlessness against the power of Heaven. She concludes the poem by urging her husband to join her in “persever[ing]” (Line 11) in “love” (Line 11) for as long as they are alive, telling him that their reward for marital and spiritual fidelity will be to “live ever” (Line 12) even after their deaths. The poem thus ends in reverence—a paradoxically triumphant self-effacement—by gesturing toward eternity and the divine grace that will preserve their souls.

Remarkably, the poem assumes a causal relationship between marital fidelity and eternal life, reflecting a hope or expectation that earthly virtue may bring salvation. This idea challenges the theological doctrine of justification, which asserts that salvation comes only through faith in God. Because most Puritans held firmly to the doctrine of justification, “To My Dear and Loving Husband” reflects Bradstreet’s willingness to play with unconventional ideas.