What do women really want? Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem “If Thou Must Love Me” illustrates that what women need and want is to have true and lasting love in their lives. The writer describes how she should and should not be loved. What she seems to be saying is that a love that depends on anything that changes, and that does not depend upon love itself, is not really love. Love is the one true and unchanging thing, the one thing that can be depended on. Any man would do well to take the advice that this poem gives, when it comes to loving a woman.
The writer knows what she wants, and she describes it in detail. She wants a love that is not dependant on anything that can be altered. Browning writes, “Do not say/ ‘I love her for her smile—her look—her way…/ For these things in themselves, Beloved, may/Be changed…” (lines 2-8). What she is really saying is that she herself may change. If he loves her for only some part of herself that might go away, or be somehow diminished over time, then his love will not last. If she loses her looks, and his love was based only upon them, then she will lose his love as well. This is not the kind of love that a woman wants. She desires the security of a love that will be constant through the circumstances and changes of life. She does not want a love that is based upon her merits. She is aware of her faults. So if love should not depend on the person being loved, what then should it depend on?
It certainly can’t depend on people. People are simply not rock solid. People are ever changing, ever aging, and ever making mistakes. All we can hope is that we learn from the mistakes that we make. So as imperfect as we are, love can not depend on us. Browning pleads, “But love me for love’s sake, that evermore/ Though mayst love on, through love’s eternity” (13-14). She’s saying, “Don’t let your love depend on me, I’m undependable. Instead let your love depend upon love itself.” The only thing that can be depended on is love. True love relies on itself and says, “I love her because it is what I was made to do”. Real love does not list conditions for its own existence. Real love simply is and will always be. This constancy is what a woman desires. She does want to be loved and admired for who she is today, but if she should change and admiration fades, she should still be loved with all her faults. It is this constancy that makes love an object of desire for women.
Losing love is a frightening possibility for a woman. All that she is can become hopelessly tangled in the life of the one that she loves. If she loses that love, she can lose her very self. The hesitation that comes from this fear can be heard in the opening lines of the poem: “If thou must love me” (1). She’s saying, “If you have to love me, if there is no way around it, then love me forever. Do not love me for a moment, and then leave me with a broken heart.” She does not want to be loved because she once gave him “A sense of pleasant ease on such a day” (6). A day will only last for a day. This line speaks of a moment in time that passes. Women do not want pleasure for just a moment. They want something of value that will last. They want something they can treasure forever and that they can be certain will always be theirs. They want something that they can trust, something that will say, “Don’t be afraid; at no time will you be alone.”
Women know without a doubt what it is that they want. They want a rare love that is more dependable than they are. They want a love with an endurance that would outlast their lives. They want constancy and faithfulness that is unconditional. Women want love that depends on nothing but love. If those who would love will love as this poem instructs, they will do well, and finally women will have what they desire.
Work Cited
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. “Sonnets from the Portuguese, Number 14: If Thou Must Love Me”
Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Robert Zweig. 5th Compact ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2012. 556. Print.
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