Gold digging

Gold digging is a type of transactional relationship in which people, usually women, engage in romantic relationships for money rather than love. When it turns into marriage it is a type of marriage of convenience.

Peggy Hopkins Joyce was in the 1920s considered the perfect example of a gold digger, with some claims existing that the term was even coined to describe her.

A popular association between chorus girls and gold diggers was established in 1919 by the "The Gold Diggers" play, association which was also present in the subsequent film four years later, The Gold Diggers.

In 1920s and 1930s American cinema the "gold digger" was the type of femme fatale that gradually replaced the "vamp". The character type would be featured for example in How to Marry a Millionaire, a 1953 film with Marilyn Monroe.

In the analysis of rap music it has been theorized that the "gold digger script" is one of a few prevalent sexual scripts present for young African American women. One very famous song featuring it is "Gold Digger", by Kanye West.

The term is often used with a negative connotation. Society frowns upon it because it is most commonly the case where the attractive women have no genuine feelings for the successful man but lead him on to believe they do. In doing that they allow the man to display them with pride knowing that they are only in it for the money or social status. This type of affair usually results in a divorce in which the gold diggers will attempt to obtain the wealthy man's assets through legal separations.

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Wikipedia