Meaning & Analysis
Poverty gives rise to conflict, whether within families, communities, or society at large.
Insights
Resource Scarcity and Conflict
Indicates that when resources are limited, competition, tension, and disputes naturally emerge among those affected.
Social Disintegration
Highlights how financial hardship undermines social bonds, leading to discord, envy, and even the breakdown of relationships and communities.
Historical Symbolism
From early modern England to the present, poverty has been recognized as a root cause of social and domestic unrest. The proverb draws on centuries of observation that want is the 'mother of envy and malice, dissension and debate.'
Cultural Resonance
Closely related to sayings such as 'Poverty parts fellowship,' the proverb expresses a cross-cultural and timeless awareness that hardship sows division, while abundance fosters peace and cooperation.
Psychological Dimensions
Reveals the emotional toll of deprivation, which heightens sensitivity to injustice, fosters resentment, and fuels interpersonal and societal conflict.
Rhetorical Devices
Personification
By saying 'poverty breeds,' the proverb gives poverty agency, vividly conveying its generative, destructive power.
Metaphor
Uses 'breeds' to liken the creation of strife to biological reproduction, emphasizing how naturally and inevitably conflict arises from lack.
Conciseness
The proverb’s brevity and punch make it forceful and memorable, encapsulating a complex social truth in four words.
Transcription
Quotations
Sche [poverty] ys the mother of envy and malice, dyssensyon and debate.
*Somerset.
Want makes Strife, Between the good Man and his Wife.
Cross References
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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