The Wife's Lament

            In “The Wife’s Lament,” the wife continues to wait and mourn the loss of her husband, hoping that he will return.  According to her words, she has complete, total faith in his return and in the idea that he will have been faithful to him while he was away.  Even though this is a perspective that could be scoffed at, this shows that the author (whomever they may be) actually believed in the concept of faith and fidelity between a man and a woman.  While this unknown author could be scoffing at the foolishness of the wife for waiting faithfully for her husband, this does not seem to be the case based on the wife’s claims of: “Whether he is master/of his own fate or is exiled in a far-off land/…my husband is caught in the clutches of anguish” (Longman 1A pg. 178, line 44-45,48).  Even though the wife character in this poem understands that her husband may be in control of his absence, she still faithfully waits for him, because (according to the way the writer treats the subject), this is the kind of faith a wife should show her husband during his absence.