A woman despises a man who’s dependent on her and sponges on her.
 George Orwell, Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936). copy citation

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Author George Orwell
Source Keep the Aspidistra Flying
Topic women sponge
Date 1936
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200021.txt

Context

“You’ve been brought up as a woman, and you can’t help behaving like a woman, however much you don’t want to.’ ‘But what do you mean by behaving like a woman, anyway?’ ‘I tell you every woman’s the same when it comes to a thing like this. A woman despises a man who’s dependent on her and sponges on her. She may say she doesn’t, she may think she doesn’t, but she does. She can’t help it. If I let you pay for my meals you’d despise me.’ He had turned away. He knew how abominably he was behaving. But somehow he had got to say these things.” source