Why buy the cow...

Posted by R. Berg on July 13, 2009 at 16:04

In Reply to: Why buy the cow... posted by Katharine Fay on July 12, 2009 at 18:24:

: What is the origin of the saying "why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free"?

Eric Partridge, Dictionary of Catch Phrases: American and British, from the Sixteenth Century to the Present Day, says that phrases like this one (he cites variants), as "cynical male gibes at marriage," have been general since the late 19th century. He labels "Why buy a book when you can join a library?"--another one in the same group--as Australian. The cow version goes back to the 17th century in English literature, but Partridge doesn't make it clear that the subject of his early examples was marriage. ~rb