Previous
Macheath
Mrs. Peachum is Peachum’s common-law wife and Polly Peachum’s mother. She plays a minor but significant role in Peachum’s criminal enterprise and shares his interest in money above all else. She is markedly more sentimental and less sadistic than he is, but she still agrees with most of his decisions—including his plot to foil Polly’s marriage to Macheath. Of course, even though Mrs. Peachum scarcely cares about Polly’s feelings, her warnings about Macheath’s womanizing, swindling ways are all correct. Similarly, while she echoes misogynist ideas about women’s fickleness and irrationality, she also has a pro-equality streak, in that she believes women should have the power to make their own decisions and live independent lives (rather than being owned and controlled by their husbands). In fact, the play suggests that she lives out this idea by having affairs with other men or even doing sex work on the side. After all, like the play’s sex workers, her place as a woman in London’s criminal underworld both denigrates her in society’s eyes and gives her many freedoms that respectable middle-class women don’t have.
Mrs. Peachum Quotes in The Beggar’s Opera
The The Beggar’s Opera quotes below are all either spoken by Mrs. Peachum or refer to Mrs. Peachum. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Act 1, Scene 4
Quotes
You would not be so mad to have the Wench marry him! Gamesters and Highwaymen are generally very good to their Whores, but they are very Devils to their Wives.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
I would indulge the Girl as far as prudently we can. In any thing, but Marriage! After that, my Dear, how shall we be safe? Are we not then in her Husband’s Power? For a Husband hath the absolute Power over all a Wife’s Secrets but her own. If the Girl had the Discretion of a Court Lady, who can have a dozen young Fellows at her Ear without complying with one, I should not matter it; but Polly is Tinder, and a Spark will at once set her on a Flame. Married! If the Wench does not know her own Profit, sure she knows her own Pleasure better than to make herself a Property! My Daughter to me should be, like a Court Lady to a Minister of State, a Key to the whole Gang. Married! If the Affair is not already done, I’ll terrify her from it.
Act 1, Scene 5
Quotes
Why must our Polly, forsooth, differ from her Sex, and love only her Husband? And why must Polly’s Marriage, contrary to all Observation, make her the less followed by other Men? All Men are Thieves in Love, and like a Woman the better for being another’s Property.
Act 1, Scene 8
Quotes
POLLY. I did not marry him (as ’tis the Fashion) cooly and deliberately for Honour or Money. But, I love him.
MRS PEACHUM. Love him! worse and worse! I thought the Girl had been better bred. Oh Husband, Husband! her Folly makes me mad! my Head swims! I’m distracted! I can’t support myself—Oh!
[Faints.]
Act 1, Scene 9
Quotes
Money, Wife, is the true Fuller’s Earth for Reputations, there is not a Spot or a Stain but what it can take out. A rich Rogue now-a-days is fit Company for any Gentleman; and the World, my Dear, hath not such a Contempt for Roguery as you imagine.
Get the entire The Beggar’s Opera LitChart as a printable PDF.
Mrs. Peachum Quotes in The Beggar’s Opera
The The Beggar’s Opera quotes below are all either spoken by Mrs. Peachum or refer to Mrs. Peachum. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Act 1, Scene 4
Quotes
You would not be so mad to have the Wench marry him! Gamesters and Highwaymen are generally very good to their Whores, but they are very Devils to their Wives.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
I would indulge the Girl as far as prudently we can. In any thing, but Marriage! After that, my Dear, how shall we be safe? Are we not then in her Husband’s Power? For a Husband hath the absolute Power over all a Wife’s Secrets but her own. If the Girl had the Discretion of a Court Lady, who can have a dozen young Fellows at her Ear without complying with one, I should not matter it; but Polly is Tinder, and a Spark will at once set her on a Flame. Married! If the Wench does not know her own Profit, sure she knows her own Pleasure better than to make herself a Property! My Daughter to me should be, like a Court Lady to a Minister of State, a Key to the whole Gang. Married! If the Affair is not already done, I’ll terrify her from it.
Act 1, Scene 5
Quotes
Why must our Polly, forsooth, differ from her Sex, and love only her Husband? And why must Polly’s Marriage, contrary to all Observation, make her the less followed by other Men? All Men are Thieves in Love, and like a Woman the better for being another’s Property.
Act 1, Scene 8
Quotes
POLLY. I did not marry him (as ’tis the Fashion) cooly and deliberately for Honour or Money. But, I love him.
MRS PEACHUM. Love him! worse and worse! I thought the Girl had been better bred. Oh Husband, Husband! her Folly makes me mad! my Head swims! I’m distracted! I can’t support myself—Oh!
[Faints.]
Act 1, Scene 9
Quotes
Money, Wife, is the true Fuller’s Earth for Reputations, there is not a Spot or a Stain but what it can take out. A rich Rogue now-a-days is fit Company for any Gentleman; and the World, my Dear, hath not such a Contempt for Roguery as you imagine.
