Darby and Joan

Darby and Joan is a proverbial phrase for a married couple content to share a quiet life of mutual devotion. Usage The Nuttall Encyclopædia defined the phrase as "a married couple celebrated for their mutual attachment", the Random House Dictionary as "a happily married couple who lead a placid, uneventful life." The Reader's Encyclopedia mentions the "loving, old-fashioned and virtuous" qualities of Darby and Joan. Appearances as a poetic conceit John Darby and his wife Joan were first mentioned in print in a poem published in The Gentleman's Magazine by Henry Woodfall (c. 1686–1747) in 1735, original title The Joys of Love never forgot. A Song. Woodfall had been apprentice to Darby, a printer in Bartholomew Close in the Little Britain area of London, who died in 1730. The poem was issued again as a broadsheet in 1748. One stanza of this poem reads: The apparent popularity of this poem led to another titled "Darby and Joan" by St. John Honeywood (1763–1798). It reads, in part: