Meaning & Analysis
A woman who accepts gifts or payment ('takes') is effectively selling her virtue or affection. Conversely, a woman who gives away her resources or affection too freely ('gives') is abandoning her own self-worth and interests.
Insights
Transactional Relationships
The proverb frames all relationships involving women in transactional terms. To 'take' is to enter a commercial contract that compromises one's integrity, while to 'give' is to unwisely devalue one's own worth, leading to self-abandonment.
Erosion of Autonomy
Both actions, taking and giving, result in a loss of female autonomy. Accepting gifts creates an obligation that 'sells' her freedom, while giving things away 'forsakes' her self-interest and independence, leaving her vulnerable.
Cynicism of Exchange
The proverb serves as a cynical commentary on the nature of reciprocity and virtue. It implies that genuine, non-transactional generosity is impossible or foolish, and that all social exchanges are fraught with the danger of either being bought or being devalued.
Patriarchal Economics
The proverb reflects a patriarchal economic system where a woman's virtue was a quantifiable asset. 'Taking' gifts implied a commercial transaction that diminished this asset, while 'giving' suggested a foolish squandering of her limited personal and material capital.
The Female Double Bind
This proverb illustrates a classic 'double bind' for women within a transactional framework of relationships. Whether she engages by receiving or by giving, she is judged negatively—either as a commodity for sale or as a fool who devalues herself. There is no prescribed path to maintaining both integrity and agency.
Psychology of Obligation
Psychologically, the proverb reveals a deep-seated anxiety about female agency and the nature of obligation. It suggests that any form of exchange initiated by a woman leads to a loss of self, framing her social and romantic interactions as inherently perilous.
Loss of Liberty
Cross-referenced proverbs like 'Who receives a gift sells his liberty' (G104) broaden the theme from gender to a universal warning about how dependency and indebtedness compromise personal freedom, though the primary proverb applies this specifically to a woman's virtue.
Rhetorical Devices
Antithesis and Parallelism
The proverb is built on a stark antithesis between 'takes' and 'gives', creating a balanced, parallel structure that highlights the inescapable negative outcomes of both actions.
Metaphor
The phrases 'sells herself' and 'forsakes herself' are powerful metaphors that equate a woman's actions to commercial transactions and self-abandonment, dramatically intensifying the perceived consequences.
Synecdoche
The use of 'The maid' functions as a synecdoche, applying this rigid moral logic to all unmarried women, thereby generalizing a specific social anxiety into a universal warning.
Transcription
Quotations
Sho [that] taks gifts, herself sho sels and sho that gives does not els.
A maid that giues is easily gotten . . . A maid that takes (much) is as good as taken.
A Wench that takes, her Body forsakes: a Wench that giues, her selfe not loues.
A Maid which takes sels her body.
A woman that takes, soon yields.
She that takes gifts, her self she sels; and she that gives, does nought else.
She that takes Gifts her self she sells, And she that gives them, does naught els.
Cross References
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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