“A Week's Matrimony (A Week's Work)”

Description

Monday the singer marries; Tuesday his wife sees a girl frying his "sausage"; Wednesday he finds a man in bed with her; Thursday they fight; Friday they part and she hangs herself in sorrow; Saturday he buries her and finds another

Notes

Peacock makes A Week's Work the same ballad as The Holly Twig although the only similarity is that they both account for the days of the week and both start with a marriage. - BS

Same tune

• The Devil in Search of a Wife (per broadsides Bodleian Johnson Ballads 289, Bodleian Harding B 11(4084), Bodleian Harding B 11(4081))

Cross references

• cf. "The Holly Twig" [Laws Q6] (theme)
• cf. "In Duckworth Street There Lived a Dame" (imagery)
• cf. "Charming Sally Ann" (imagery)

Broadsides

• Bodleian, Johnson Ballads 289, "A Week's Matrimony"("On Sunday I went out on a spree"), J. Catnach (London), 1813-1838; also Firth c.20(135), Harding B 20(185), Harding B 11(4082), Harding B 11(4083), Harding B 11(4084), 2806 c.16(23)[some words illegible], Firth c.20(136)[some words illegible], Harding B 11(4081), 2806 b.9(271), Firth c.20(134), "[A] Week's Matrimony[!]"
• Murray, Mu23-y1:088, "The Week's Matrimony," James Lindsay (Glasgow), 19C

References

1. Peacock, pp. 322-323, "A Week's Work" (1 text, 1 tune)
2. Leach-Labrador 120, "Days of the Week" (1 text, 1 tune)
3. Roud #1692
4. BI, Pea322