A Woman to Her Lover - poetry review

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A Woman to Her Lover Final Navdeep Alg

Christina Walsh

'A Woman to Her Lover' is a poem that voices out the change in attitude of many women in the 19th century. It is about a woman stating conditions for marriage to her husband. The use of the conditional tense throughout the poem makes the poem appear like a marriage contract. This is striking because it contains the conditions of a marriage contract but from a woman. This would seem extremely odd at that period of as women were treated as subservient and marriage contracts would be made with men's interests at heart.

The idea of men treating women as inferior is opposed in the first stanza. This stanza details the rejection of male dominance by a woman. Men are described as, 'conqueror,' to women who are, 'bond slaves.' The vocabulary in this stanza highlights the strong feelings of the women and of her hate for her role in society. The writer uses words such as, 'bond slave, bear, bend,' the repetition of the plosive constantans in these words shows the resentment of the women to being men's slave as these words are harsh sounding and