Anne Bradstreet: Wife, Mother and Poet Annmicha Blugh College

In her anthology The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up In America (1650), Anne Bradstreet focuses on her most dominant concerns, the family and the woman’s roles as wife and mother. Based on Biblical authority, wifehood and motherhood are not only roles but also sacred, spiritual values which are deeply embedded in society. As a Puritan woman, Bradstreet upholds these family values. Owing to belief in the sanctity of marriage, she manifests unwavering devotion to her husband and, in her poems, makes many marital and wifely references. As a mother, her dedication and love for her offspring are unmistakable as she infuses imagery of the mother in her poems. Anne Bradstreet’s poetry reveals the treasured values of wifehood and motherhood as she abides by the standards and principles concerning family typical of the Puritan woman.

Bradstreet’s poems express the most sacred and inviolable oneness in the conjugal relationship. These tenets, which are biblically supported, are reflected in Bradstreet’s poems, “Before the Birth of One of Her Children,” “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” and “A Letter to Her Husband”. According to author Amanda Porterfield, “Puritan ministers […] invested relationships between husbands and wives with religious...