A spendthrift (also profligate or prodigal) is someone who is extravagant and recklessly wasteful with money, often to a point where the spending climbs well beyond their means. Spendthrift derives from an obsolete sense of the word thrift to mean prosperity rather than frugality,[ thefreedictionary.com, "thrift"] so a "spendthrift" is one who has spent their prosperity.[ World Wide Words, "how thrift applied to spend can end up being someone who is not thrifty"]
Historical figures who have been characterised as spendthrifts include George IV of the United Kingdom,[Gerhard Hojer (ed.): König Ludwig II.-Museum Herrenchiemsee. Katalog (Munich, 1986, p. 137)] and Marie Antoinette the Queen of France.[Antonia Fraser (2001). Marie Antoinette (1st ed.). New York: N.A. Talese/Doubleday. p. 226]
The term is often used by news media as an adjective applied to governments who are thought to be government waste.[Westmore, Peter (2011). " Why Portuguese voters punished spendthrift Government" News Weekly, June 25, 2011, accessed 20 November 2012]["In capitals such as Athens, Madrid and Rome, large portions of the sovereign debt racked up by spendthrift governments are owed to the countries' own banks..." Chu, Henry and Lauren Frayer (2012). " Europe's governments, banks perilously entwined: Much of the crushing debt that was racked up by the former is owed to the latter." Los Angeles Times, 19 May 2012, accessed 20 November 2012]
Etymology
While the pair of words may seem to imply the opposite of its meaning (as if you are thrifty in your spending), it follows the tradition of the earlier word
scattergood, the first part being an undoing of the second.
[Etymology Online:
]
Spendthrift
c.1600, from spend + thrift in sense of "savings, profits, wealth." Replaced earlier scattergood (1570s) and spend-all (1550s).
In artwork
William Hogarth's
A Rake's Progress (1732–33) displays in a series of paintings the spiralling fortunes of a wealthy but spendthrift son and
heir who loses his money, and who as a consequence is
imprisoned in the
Fleet Prison and ultimately Bedlam.
In literature
-
The Young Man and the Swallow (which also has the Victorian title of "The Spendthrift and the Swallow") is a fable about a young man who spends all his money on gambling and luxurious living.
-
Inferno (Dante) briefly describes the fate of the violently profligate. They are doomed to recklessly scramble, while being chased by vicious dogs, through the bracken of the second ring in the seventh circle of Hell, the place reserved for those who do violence against the self.
In the Bible
In the
Parable of the Prodigal Son, a son asks his father for his inheritance, but then squanders it recklessly as he lives a life of indulgence. With nothing left of his fortune, he is forced to work as a hired hand for a pig farmer.
Legal issues
The modern legal remedy for spendthrifts is usually
bankruptcy. However, during the 19th and 20th centuries, a few jurisdictions, such as the U.S. states of
Oregon and
Massachusetts, experimented with
under which the family of such a person could have him or her legally declared a "spendthrift" by a
court of law and placed under a
Legal guardian. In turn, spendthrifts were treated as lacking the capacity to enter into binding
.
[See ORS 126.335 (repealed Or. Stat. 1961, ch. 344, § 109). Oregon's unusual law resulted in a famous conflict of laws opinion, Lilienthal v. Kaufman, 239 Ore. 1, 395 P.2d 543 (1964).][ Chandler v. Simmons, 97 Mass. 508, 514 (1867).] Even though such laws made life harder for
(who now had to bear the burden of verifying up front that any prospective debtor had not been judicially declared a spendthrift), they were thought to be justified by the
public policy of keeping a spendthrift's family from ending up in the
poorhouse or on welfare. As the Supreme Court of Oregon explained, the purpose of the statute is to protect the spendthrift "against his wasteful and vicious habits which expose him or are likely to expose him or his family to want or suffering or to cause any public authority to be charged for any expense for his support or that of his family".
[ Olshen v. Kaufman, 235 Or. 423, 385 P.2d 161 (1963). This case involved the same defendant and was relied upon by the majority in Lilienthal. Both cases involved joint ventures for the sale of binoculars.] Such laws have since been abolished in favour of bankruptcy, which is more favourable to creditors.
Receivership is another equitable remedy for a spendthrift, by which a state-court-appointed trustee or lawyer manages and sells the property of the debtor in default on debts.
In conservatorship, a fiduciary handles both the personal affairs and paying the debts of an incapacitated person.
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