'Rhetorical Analysis Of Katherine Philips ' A Married State'

It is believed that with marriage comes happiness. With A Married State, readers reconsider what a married life would truly be like. By using the rhetorical devices, anaphora, irony and personification, Katherine Philips advises women to remain single, as the opposite of what marriage is perceived to be like is expressed. The rhetorical device, anaphora is used to establish what life would be like without marriage. The repetition of the word “No” (Black, 703), at the beginning of three consecutive lines, lists to the reader what they would have to manage if they did get married. Philips implies that without marriage, there would be no husbands, childbirth, or children, to cause pain. Therefore women will be happier without marriage. With marriage readers would automatically expect everything that comes along with it, would bring happiness. Instead Philips dismisses this with words like “fears” and “tears” (Black, 703). Naturally the reader visualizes an unhappy scene, as Philips illustrates to single women how they will suffer by getting married. As a result, Philips changes the readers mind away from what marriage is believed to be …show more content…
With the line, “Few worldly crosses to distract your prayers” (Black, 703) Philips proposes that women will be overly concerned with their family, by being distracted by a husband and child, which will result in no time for prayer. During the seventeenth century, it was a woman’s duty to get married and have children. Yet, Philips is diminishing this belief by informing women they will be “freed from all the cares” (Black, 703) that come along with marriage. Therefore she is teasing women who at this time were married, as it was their duty. Philips digresses the readers mind away from the norms that the seventeenth century society has instilled in women, despite it being a woman's duty to have a