Mrs. Grundy Portrait

Sepia-toned photograph of a Victorian-era woman's head and shoulders on an orange background

What would Mrs. Grundy say? She would probably say that today’s fashion is far too revealing, popular music and television too suggestive, and modern technology distracting young people from their traditional values. 

Mrs. Grundy originally appeared in 1798 as a character in the play “Speed the Plough” by Thomas Morton. The play is set in a rural English village and is about a family of farmers, the Ashfield’s. Sir Philip Blandford plans to evict them, but it is soon revealed that their son, Henry, is actually the illegitimate son of Sir Philip, resolving the conflict and securing Henry as the rightful heir to Sir Phillip’s estate. Throughout the play, Henry’s mother, Dame Ashfield, grows increasingly concerned with the opinion of their neighbor, Mrs. Grundy, and continuously asks herself and others, “What would Mrs. Grundy say?” Mrs. Grundy herself never actually appears throughout the entirety of the play and only exists in Dame Ashfield’s anxious questioning. Mrs. Grundy becomes an unseen character symbolizing societal pressures and strict traditional values, as well as the role of public opinion is shaping one's behavior. 

Just a few years after the play was first performed, “Mrs. Grundy” was adopted as a term, often used to criticize someone for being excessively prude or moral. By the 20th century, Mrs. Grundy became a political symbol and “grundyism” emerged and is still a relevant term used today, especially in discussions of media censorship. As defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, grundyism is “​​a narrow prudish intolerant conventionality especially as to the proprieties.”