The Value(£) of Women in 'The Beggar's Opera'

It is made extremely clear to the readers of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera that the play has several main themes. These include money, possessions and women, and what is fascinating to see is how John Gay links the former with the latter in order to show that women are often treated like property or possession, like money. In The Beggar's Opera, Gay likens women to money in order to explore a woman’s worth in eighteenth-century society.

A prime example of this can be found in Air 5 of the Opera when women are compared to gold, “A maid is like the golden ore” (Act I).  A married woman is then likened to a minted Guinea whose “worth is never known, before it is tried and impressed in the mint” (I, v). In Air 5 Gay relates the stamping of new coins to a woman taking the last name of her husband and he even claims that “a wife's like a guinea in gold, stamped with the name of her spouse” (I, v).

Mrs Peachum states that men are attracted to “minted” women because their values have already been determined and she herself even refers to women as property, claiming that “All men are thieves in love, and like a woman the better for being another's property” (I, v). Women are referred to as money or as a material possession that “..is bought, or is sold...” (I, v). It is interesting to note that this reference, written by John Gay, is highly relevant to the time in which the play was written, as, during the eighteenth century, money was seen as a major symbol of status.

Polly’s decision to marry a low-class man is seen by Mrs Peachum as a failure on her own part as she believes that her daughter is lowering her worth by marrying a highwayman. “How the mother is to be pitied who hath handsome daughters! Locks, bolts, bars and lectures of morality are nothing to them” (I, viii). During the Restoration period in England a strong sense of morality was seen as the perfect symbol of a well-bred family and it is therefore highly disappointing for Mrs Peachum to realise that her daughter has failed to pay attention to this social indicator. Polly’s parents hope that their daughter will not choose a man who brings no benefit to the family’s honour within society and wish that she would find a wealthier man who can be trusted with the family’s finances.

It is refreshing to see that contrary to older philosophies that regard women as worthless objects without men, Air 5 suggests that instead of creating and giving value to a woman, the man simply shapes it. Marriage is represented as a way of upgrading or degrading a woman’s initial value and as Mrs Peachum herself recognises this, she worries that her daughter's change in value will become permanent through marriage. It is therefore not the relationship itself, but marriage that causes problems.

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Kidson, Frank. "'The Beggar's Opera'." The Musical Times. 62. 937 London: Musical Times Publications Ltd., Mar. 1, 1921.  (167-169)