The speaker functions as an aggressive, pushy salesperson who dictates the terms of a patriarchal transaction. He views marriage as a commercial exchange, assessing the applicant's needs to sell him a wife. He answers to no one and maintains absolute control over the conversation, repeatedly demanding compliance. He strips the humanity from both the buyer and the product.

The applicant is a completely naked, empty-handed man attempting to secure a place in polite society. Because he lacks a wife, the speaker views him as incomplete and desperate. He possesses no voice or agency against the speaker's relentless sales pitch, yet he actively participates in an exchange that secures his dominance over a woman. He requires a traditional marriage to avoid social ostracization.

The wife is presented entirely as a commodity, stripped of her humanity and assigned the pronoun "it." She possesses no voice or personality, existing solely to serve the needs of her future husband by cooking, sewing, talking, and soothing his headaches. She functions as a blank canvas whose financial and social value increases over a fifty-year period. She is expected to dissolve into tears when her husband dies.