Puritan Poetwife.

Yes, at least one Puritan Poet exists, Anne Bradstreet, nee Dudley. She was born and educated in England, primarily by reading everything her father owned. She followed her husband to the new world, and from there to the frontier, where she had eight children.

The English gentlewomen of this time were not only intelligent, but they were fough. And not without joy.

To My Dear and Loving Husband

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.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.
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.

Anne Bradstreet

I said before that they bred them tough. Because it was a time when being a wife meant that you would be a mother, and there was a great risk of death with every birth. A number of men stopped their marital duty (and it was and is a duty within marriage) because they did not want their wife to suffer another delivery. Bradstreet was not unaware of the risk. But she chose to take it.

Before the Birth of One of Her Children
All things within this fading world hath end,
Adversity doth still our joyes attend;
No ties so strong, no friends so dear and sweet,
But with death’s parting blow is sure to meet.
The sentence past is most irrevocable,
A common thing, yet oh inevitable.
How soon, my Dear, death may my steps attend,
How soon’t may be thy Lot to lose thy friend,
We are both ignorant, yet love bids me
These farewell lines to recommend to thee,
That when that knot’s untied that made us one,
I may seem thine, who in effect am none.
And if I see not half my dayes that’s due,
What nature would, God grant to yours and you;
The many faults that well you know I have
Let be interr’d in my oblivious grave;
If any worth or virtue were in me,
Let that live freshly in thy memory
And when thou feel’st no grief, as I no harms,
Yet love thy dead, who long lay in thine arms.
And when thy loss shall be repaid with gains
Look to my little babes, my dear remains.
And if thou love thyself, or loved’st me,
These o protect from step Dames injury.
And if chance to thine eyes shall bring this verse,
With some sad sighs honour my absent Herse;
And kiss this paper for thy loves dear sake,
Who with salt tears this last Farewel did take.

Anne Bradstreet

When the women of this age complain of their risks and travails, the women of the ages before will rise up and tell them that they lived longer, worked less, took less risks, grieved less.

And that they lived less richly. Our politics of envy and disability have crippled us.

3 thoughts on “Puritan Poetwife.

  1. Pingback: All the success in the world. | American Dad

  2. I enjoyed this, Chris. My mother died delivering me. And believe it or not, her mother died delivering her. we are both the last born of five children born to women who didn’t live to raise their children to adulthood. That might explain why I adored my father so much, and rarely write anything motherly. My stepmom is a great lady (dad remarried when I was just shy of 10), but daddy did the heavy lifting.

    To say that I approached motherhood with trepidation -my sister did as well- would be a huge understatement. I don’t think I am brave for having children. Heck, the first one was an oops in the truest since. I think motherhood is something that is as natural to woman as breathing. Or at least it was before decades of systematic propaganda and education to desensitize women to their natural function and use.

    I’ve babbled enough. Great post, sir.

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