Lady_Chapernell

Lady Chapernell Lady Chudleigh’s 16th century poem To the Ladies, instructs a woman to reflect long and hard on the word “Obey” when vowing her heart, hand and life in marriage. She indicates that a woman will lose not only her autonomy, but must also forgo all rights to her own ideas, personality, and her sense of humor. In line 1, the speaker declares that the status of a wife and servant are the same in the eyes of a husband. This is a commonly accepted view for the early 1700’s, and in some ways, is as true now as then. However, women of today have more equality in marriage than did women of that time, including the option of divorce which was then frowned upon if sought by either party, though was more accepted when asked for by the husband. At present, little thought is given to the state of divorce, no matter the number of times, or the reason for divorce. Line 3 announces that marriage is a “fatal knot”, telling the marriage, women, woman, wife, view, husband, divorce, same, obey, man, life, early, death, century, accepted, writer, word, womanly, without, wedding, ways, way, warns, vowing, upon, uncommon, true, torment, today, times, time, thought, though, telling, taught