Sex and Money Theme Analysis

Much of Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders revolves around sex and money. In 17th-century England, personal wealth is the very foundation of social status and importance. In Moll’s experience, “if a young Woman have Beauty, Birth, Breeding, Wit, Sense, Manners, Modesty, and all these to an Extream; yet if she have not Money, she’s no Body.” That is, all the virtues in the world add up to nothing if they’re not accompanied by wealth. Of course, Moll is a poor orphan and doesn’t have any money, so she must find alternative means to security. Additionally, according to Moll, it is necessary “for all women who expect any thing in the World to preserve the Character of Virtue.” In other words, a woman’s worth is based on purity and virginity, which Moll finds difficult to feign after five marriages. Broke and without a husband, Moll turns to crime to survive, and she spends 12 years as a “whore.”  For Moll, sex is a sort of currency, both in her marriages and in her career as a prostitute, and she uses it to secure her place in society. Through Moll Flanders, Defoe highlights the intricate relationship between sex and money and ultimately argues that women like Moll can rarely separate the two—and that society’s expectations for women’s wealth and virginity are thus an impossible standard.

From the moment Moll falls in love for the very first time, there is a definite connection between sex and money, which suggests the two are inseparable. When the older brother, the son of the wealthy lady who takes Moll in, kisses Moll, he throws her down and kisses her “most violently.” He only stops when he hears someone coming, at which time he professes “a great deal of Love for [her], […] and with that he put five Guineas into [her] Hand, and went away down Stairs.” This is one of Moll’s first romantic encounters with the older brother, and she is already, in effect, paid for it. Moll’s relationship with the older brother grows sexual and he promises that he will one day marry her, but Moll doubts it. By way of convincing her, “he pulls out a silk Purse, with an Hundred Guineas in it,” and gives it to Moll. “I’ll give you such another,” the older brother says, “every Year till I Marry you.” Again, there is a direct connection between money and sex implied in the older brother’s promise of marriage. Of course, the older brother has no intention of marrying Moll, and he gives her even more money when he finally admits it. “I here offer you 500 £, in Money, to make you some Amends for the Freedoms I have taken with you,” he says to Moll. He has taken Moll’s virtue by having a sexual relationship with her, and he makes it clear that the going rate is 500 pounds.

Later, after Moll turns to prostitution, sex becomes currency in a more literal way, which further highlights the connection between sex and money in the novel and in 17th-century England more generally. After the death of Moll’s first husband, Robin, she moves to a place where no one knows her and changes her name. Moll dresses up “in the Habit of a Widow, and call’d [herself] Mrs. Flanders.” In London, there is a long association between Flemish women (women from Flanders) and prostitutes, and Moll obviously knows this. By calling herself Mrs. Flanders, Moll implies that she is not opposed to prostitution as a way to secure herself wealth and status. Moll admits that her name is a nickname given to her by her “Comrades”—her friends in crime and, likely, other prostitutes. The name “Moll” is slang for a woman of ill repute, such as a prostitute, which is precisely why they give her that name. Again, in Moll’s case, it’s impossible to separate sex and money if she wants a stable, independent life. From the moment Moll meets the Gentleman, she knows he is just what she needs to lift herself out of her life of poverty. “I resolv’d to let him lye with me if he offer’d it,” Moll says, “but it was because I wanted his help and assistance, and I knew no other way of securing him than that.” Here, Moll explicitly says that without money, she has only her body and sex, which she must use to get what she needs; she literally doesn’t know of any other options for securing stability.

After Moll’s fifth and final husband, the banker, dies, she is ultimately left on her own again. Afterward, Moll works almost exclusively as a thief and a prostitute, until she is finally arrested near the end of the novel and thrown into Newgate Prison. For Moll, sex and money can never be separated, even though society might claim that it’s necessary for women to preserve their virginity. Through Moll’s story, Defoe implies that women like Moll are in an impossible double bind: they must have money and they must preserve their sexual purity, but in many cases, those two apparent virtues are in direct conflict with one another.