Marriage, Is It A Funeral?

One of the poems that were discussed in class today was Emily Dickinson's, " Because I could not stop for Death".  We had mentioned that the poem could possibly be a metaphor for marriage.  I believe this to be true due to the second stanza. It reads "We slowly drove- He knew no haste/ And I had put away/ My labor and my leisure too,/ For his Civility".  This does not explain the use of "Death" in the title and first line.  Some may believe that the poem describes a woman being taken away in a "carriage" and getting married.  Her life then flashes before her eyes and before she knows it she is dead. I take it another way.  Instead of her actually dying I believe that her life is dead once she is married.  Men often times joke to each other saying that once you are married the fun ends and because of this marriage is a funeral.  Maybe, this is why most grooms wear black Tuxedos; to signify the death of their bachelor life.  I believe that this what Dickinson is writing about, except it is about a woman not a man. Many women's lives change after marriage.  They cook, clean and care for their new husbands.  They also begin to have and raise children.  Just as men's lives change after marriage, women's also change. This is something that I did really think about until I read this poem.