The farmer's daughter or farm girl is a

stock character A stock character, also known as a character archetype, is a type of character in a narrative (e.g. a novel, play, television show, or film) whom audiences recognize across many narratives or as part of a storytelling tradition or convention. Th ...

and

stereotype In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalization, generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can ...

in fiction for the daughter of a

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer ...

, who is often portrayed as a desirable and naïve young woman. She is described as being an "open-air type" and "public-spirited", who will tend to marry a

hero A hero (feminine: heroine) is a real person or fictional character who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or Physical strength, strength. The original hero type of classical epics did such thin ...

and settle down.

History

Sexual humour

The character has historically often formed the basis for a series of jokes, known as "farmer's daughter jokes", which tend to be sexual in nature and focus on acts of

promiscuity Promiscuity is the practice of engaging in sexual activity frequently with different partners or being indiscriminate in the choice of sexual partners. The term can carry a moral judgment. A common example of behavior viewed as promiscuous by man ...

. Christopher R. Fee, Jeffrey B. Webb,
American Myths, Legends, and Tall Tales
' (2016), p. 363. A medieval French story describes a farmer's daughter who "Couldn't Bear to Hear About Fucking". In the story, the farmer's daughter is rendered physically ill by the very mention of

vulgarism In the study of language and literary style, a vulgarism is an expression or usage considered non-standard or characteristic of uneducated speech or writing. In colloquial or lexical English, "vulgarism" or " vulgarity" may be synonymous with pr ...

s, so she and her father's farmhand come up with

euphemism A euphemism ( ) is when an expression that could offend or imply something unpleasant is replaced with one that is agreeable or inoffensive. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse, while others use bland, inoffensive terms for concepts that the u ...

s, referring to his penis as a horse and her vagina as a spring; at the end of the story, however, she instructs him to water his horse in her spring, implying that she is unwilling to speak vulgar words, but readily performs the acts. Other variations of this types of joke characterize the farmer's daughter as an

ingénue The ''ingénue'' (, , ) is a stock character in literature, film and a role type in the theater, generally a girl or a young woman, who is endearingly innocent. ''Ingénue'' may also refer to a new young actress or one typecast in such role ...

with far less knowledge about sex than the girls of her age in a city or town, (due to her upbringing being more focused on manual labor than in socialization) in this version the farmhand (or whatever other stock male character is fulfilling his role in context) takes advantage of the woman's naiveté towards her own sexual desires to get with her, often creating a misconception in the process whose unexpected consequences will be the joke's final

punch line A punch line (also punch-line or punchline) concludes a joke; it is intended to make people Laughter, laugh. It is the third and final part of the Joke#Telling jokes, typical joke structure. It follows the introductory framing of the joke and th ...

. The plot of "farmer's daughter" jokes often involves the seduction of the daughter by another stock character, the

peddler A peddler (American English) or pedlar (British English) is a door-to-door and/or travelling vendor of good (economics), goods. In 19th-century United States the word "drummer" was often used to refer to a peddler or traveling salesman; as exem ...

. The concept of the farmer's daughter having sex with an itinerant traveling salesman is particularly prominent in American retellings, where they are "closely associated with

Ozark The Ozarks, also known as the Ozark Mountains, Ozark Highlands or Ozark Plateau, is a physiographic region in the U.S. states of Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma, as well as a small area in the southeastern corner of Kansas. The Ozarks cov ...

subculture", and where some jokes can be traced back to at least 1900.

Character stereotypes

Several stereotypes have been attached to farmer's daughters. The farmer's daughter is also characterized as being physically healthy. In a 1753 debate in the

British House of Commons The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 memb ...

, politician Robert Nugent, who was extolling the right of people to marry outside their class, stated that "a farmer's daughter is a match for the eldest son of the best lord in the land, and perhaps a better match than his father would chuse for him, because she will bring good and wholesome blood into the family". Another characteristic is the desire of the farmer's daughter to leave the farm and discover the city and urban life. A mid-20th century American account relates that the author "heard it often stressed that a farmer's daughter is the right woman for the farmhouse. Time and time again I have heard a farmer's daughter say that she would never be a farmer's wife, yes, and at times when she's asked, she changes her mind!"

Popular culture

The character of the farmer's daughter appears in several popular mainstream media productions, including the three daughters, Betty Jo, Bobbie Jo, and Billie Jo in the sitcom ''

Petticoat Junction ''Petticoat Junction'' is an American television sitcom that originally aired on CBS from September 1963 to April 1970. The series takes place at the Shady Rest Hotel, which is run by Kate Bradley; her three daughters Billie Jo, Bobbie Jo, an ...

'', Mary Ann Summers in ''

Gilligan's Island ''Gilligan's Island'' is an American sitcom created and produced by Sherwood Schwartz. The show's ensemble cast features Bob Denver, Alan Hale Jr., Jim Backus, Natalie Schafer, Tina Louise, Russell Johnson, and Dawn Wells. It aired for th ...

'',

Daisy Duke Daisy Duke is a fictional character, played by Catherine Bach, from the American television series ''The Dukes of Hazzard''. She is the cousin of Bo and Luke, the third main protagonists of the show, and the three live on a farm on the outskir ...

in ''

The Dukes of Hazzard ''The Dukes of Hazzard'' is an American action comedy television series created by Gy Waldron that aired on CBS from January 26, 1979, to February 8, 1985, with a total of seven seasons consisting of List of The Dukes of Hazzard episodes, 147 ...

'', and

Elly May Clampett ''The Beverly Hillbillies'' is an American television sitcom that was broadcast on CBS from 1962 to 1971. It had an ensemble cast featuring Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Donna Douglas, and Max Baer Jr. as the Clampetts, a poor backwoods family fr ...

in ''

The Beverly Hillbillies ''The Beverly Hillbillies'' is an American television sitcom that was broadcast on CBS from 1962 to 1971. It had an ensemble cast featuring Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Donna Douglas, and Max Baer Jr. as the Clampetts, a poor backwoods family ...

'', as well as Daisy Mae in the comic strip ''

Li'l Abner ''Li'l Abner'' was a satirical American comic strip that appeared in multiple newspapers in the United States, Canada, and Europe. It featured a fictional clan of hillbillies living in the impoverished fictional mountain village of Dogpatch, ...

''.Marie-Luise Kohlke, Luisa Orza, ''Negotiating Sexual Idioms: Image, Text, Performance'' (2008), p. 40. Aspects of the character type appeared in the 1947 film, '' The Farmer's Daughter'', later adapted into a TV series of the same name, and remade in 1962.

References

Narrative techniques Female stock characters Stereotypes of rural people Fictional farmers {{Stock characters