To My Dear and Loving Husband

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.