When creating HTML emails, should we use html, head, body tags?

In my email views, I usually just do something like...

<dl>
   <dt>Name</dt>
   <dd>Value</dd>
</dl>

Should I be doing it like this?

<html>
  <head></head>
  <body>
    <dl>
       <dt>Name</dt>
       <dd>Value</dd>
    </dl>
  </body>
</html>

In other words, like I was marking up a standalone document?

I guess I can safely assume any web based email client will strip it out?

What is the right way?