Anne Bradstreet

To My Dear and Loving Husband

Conditional logic

Three "If ever" statements building to a challenge. She's not saying "we're happy"—she's saying "if anyone ever was, we are." Hypothetical framing makes an absolute claim.

If ever two were one, then surely we.
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.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.

"The East"

1650s shorthand for Asian trade wealth—spices, silk, gems from India and China. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was dirt poor; she's comparing domestic love to global empire.

Unquenchable thirst

Biblical echo of John 4:14—spiritual thirst that water can't satisfy. She's using Christ-language for marital love, which was theologically bold.

My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompence.
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[e],
That when we live no more, we may live ever.

Eternal life

Puritan theology: earthly marriages end at death. She's arguing their love will survive into heaven, which contradicts "till death do us part."

Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

A Puritan Woman's Radical Claim

CONTEXT Anne Bradstreet wrote this around 1650 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Puritan culture emphasized duty in marriage, not passion. Women's writing was suspect—when her poems were published in 1650 (without her permission), the preface defensively noted she still did her housework.

The poem's structure is argument disguised as love poem. Those opening "If ever" lines aren't romantic gushing—they're logical propositions. She's essentially saying: "If the categories 'unified couple,' 'loved husband,' and 'happy wife' have ever existed in human history, then we are the proof." It's a bold claim dressed in conditional grammar.

The economic metaphors (gold mines, Eastern riches) aren't just hyperbole. In a colony where most families struggled to survive, where wealth meant land and livestock, she's claiming emotional wealth that outvalues global trade empires. For a woman who owned nothing legally (her husband controlled all property), this is pointed.

The theological move at the end is quietly radical. Puritan doctrine held that earthly marriages were temporal contracts ending at death—heaven had no marriage. Her final couplet argues their love will "live ever" beyond death, suggesting marital love might be eternal. She's rewriting theology through a love poem.

The Repayment Problem

The poem's central tension: she can't repay his love. Line 9's "I can no way repay" isn't modesty—it's economic language. Marriage was a legal contract; love was supposed to be mutual exchange. She's declaring bankruptcy.

Her solution is to outsource the debt to God: "The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray." She's literally asking divine intervention to pay what she owes. This moves their marriage from earthly transaction to cosmic scale.

Notice the shift from "I prize" and "My love" (lines 5-7) to "Thy love" (line 9). The first stanza is about her feelings; the second admits his love is greater than hers. The poem isn't mutual adoration—it's asymmetrical, and she knows it. The only way to balance the equation is to make it infinite: love that survives death doesn't need earthly repayment.