Bradstreet's Rules In To My Dear And Loving Husband

The Women Rules
The role of women was an important factor in Bradstreet works because she did not agree with the stereotype that women were inferior to men in the Puritan society. In her poetry gender influences her work in two different types of ways. She takes on the role as a mother and wife. Bradstreet is fighting for women's rights because she doesn’t agree with women being inferior to men in the Puritan society. She writes during a time where women weren’t engaging in these activities."Now say, have women worth? or have they none? Or had they some, but with our queen is't gone? Nay Masculines, you have thus taxt us long, But she, though dead, will vindicate our wrong, Let such as say our Sex is void of Reason, Know tis a Slander now,
but once was Treason." Bradstreet is questioning the belief that women don’t have any worth and were only made for their skills.
Women were expected in the 1600s to spend their time cooking, taking care of the children and their husband needs. “ A bartas can do what a bartas will but simple I according to my skill” this explains how men have power and women are supposed to only take care of the house. In The Prologue she explains that women were blamed for having accomplishments and Crawford 2 she believed they should be doing other things such as housework rather than her poetry.
They believed she should be raising her children to be followers of God. In To My Dear and Loving Husband she is lusting over her husband and she wants him back. She is going against her gender norms by expressing her strong love, they believe this would stray her further from God. “Any woman who sought to use her wit, charm, or intelligence in the community at a large found herself ridiculed, banished, or executed by the Colony’s powerful group of male leaders”. She was expected to only worship God and not her husband”.
In the Puritian, a relationship between a man and women was to be sacred and kept behind closed doors. A puritan couple wasn’t allowed to express their feelings or draw any attention to their relationship because they believed it was a sin. They believed that their relationship with God was the important and their relationship with their husband would further them from a relationship with God. Bradstreet gender influenced her feelings about her husband she hid from the public into her poetry. During this time Puritan women didn’t express themselves in this matter. Puritan women were to be seen and not heard in public and women works weren’t supposed to be shown to the public. Bradstreet says “ for my mean pen are too superior things” refers to her society believing that women are incapable about writing about cities and wars. The role of women in a puritan
society was not to be seen or heard. Bradstreet expresses that in her work.
Anne Bradstreet works attempted to break down the puritan society that women were inferior to men. Her works gave women a voice and fought for women rights Bradstreet in fact didn’t publish her works her brother took them without her knowledge and had them published for her. Bradstreet showed that women were more than just taking care of the household but can have minds of their own