Vicarious Gold Digger

"May you, my child, look tenderly upon this man!
He is asking for the gracious gift of your heart.
Give him your hand and call him your bridegroom,
And if you are in agreement with me, he will be your husband tomorrow.
See this necklace, see these bracelets —
It's just a figment of what he owns!
Don't you want it, my child?
If you exchange rings with him, it's all yours."

— Daland, The Flying Dutchman

Alice isn't a Gold Digger. She wants to Marry for Love, or maybe she is uninterested in marrying entirely. However, her father Bob wants her to marry — and specifically to marry someone rich. Bob is a Vicarious Gold Digger.

The reasons for such behavior can vary. If Bob is evil, he most probably wants to mooch off Alice's wealth. A nicer version of Bob would want to secure his child's future, never mind that it's likely to end up as an Awful Wedded Life of the Gilded Cage variety. Of course, if the Vicarious Gold Digger is the younger relative of the equation and their family is really poor, they might be more sympathetic even in the former case. If Alice's son Charlie can't even afford some Mundane Luxury and/or barely sees his mother due to her working several jobs, his wish to see her marry someone rich is more understandable.

Often goes hand in hand with Arranged Marriage, Nobility Marries Money, Vicariously Ambitious, and Parent-Preferred Suitor, especially if there's a Rich Suitor, Poor Suitor triangle underway. Can likewise be related to Shipper with an Agenda. Compare Meal Ticket; contrast Not with Them for the Money.

Unsuccessful Vicarious Gold Diggers can frequently act as Obnoxious In-Laws towards whomever their relative does marry.

See also If I Were a Rich Man where a person dreams what they would be like if they were wealthy which can overlap with this, as said dream could be their motivation for being a Vicarious Gold Digger in the first place.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Fairy Tail: Jude Heartfilia’s reasoning for instigating the Phantom Lord arc was to kidnap his daughter Lucy so that he could force her into an Arranged Marriage with Duke Sawarr Junnelle, the heir to the Junnelle corporation so that Jude could gain the Junnelle’s vast fortune and land in order to save the Family Business from ruin, making it clear that he’s Only in It for the Money rather than for his daughter’s happiness.

Films — Animated

• Cinderella: After the king announces the prince is to marry the one girl that fits the glass slipper, news reaches the Tremaine household. Lady Tremaine abruptly enters her daughters' rooms and jostles them awake, telling that one of the two (Anastasia or Drizella) can be the prince's wife if they try out the slipper. When Lady Tremaine discovers Cinderella was at the ball the previous night, she locks her stepdaughter in her room and forces Drizella and Anastasia to try to fit the (dainty) slipper on their (large) feet.

Films — Live-Action

• Coming to America: Cleo McDowell disapproves of Akeem dating Lisa, because Akeem was just a poor goat herder back in Zamunda and Cleo doesn't want Lisa to struggle in life like him and his late wife/Lisa's mother, so he would rather she marry someone with money. Cleo only accepts Akeem when he finds out Akeem is the crown prince of Zamunda.
• Madea's Family Reunion: Lisa's mother Victoria wants her daughter to marry Carlos, a wealthy investment banker, so that she will continue to afford her luxurious lifestyle. That Carlos is abusive to Lisa is irrelevant to Victoria.
• Claudette from The Room (2003) encourages her daughter Lisa to marry her banker fiancé, Johnny, not out of love, but out of obligation and for the money that he could provide for them both.
• In Titanic (1997), Rose's mother pushes her to marry Caledon Hockley specifically because it would save their family from complete poverty.

Literature

• In Brig Scarlet Flamingo, Baron and Baroness Loyceter are completely impoverished (due to their own irresponsibility with money no less), and they try to find the wealthiest husbands available for their daughters, regardless of the daughters' wishes. The fact that they constantly demand money from their in-laws has made them so infamous that by the time their sixth daughter reaches marriageable age, nobody from continental Walsia wants to ask for her hand.
• A highly unusual version involving a love interest happens in Death on the Nile. Jacqueline isn't interested in money, but her fiance is, so Jacqueline helps him marry a wealthy spouse and kill her soon afterwards.
• In Elvina and Edwin, a loose translation of David Mallet's Edwin and Emma by Vasily Zhukovsky, it's elaborated that Edwin's father objects to the eponymous couple's romance specifically because Elvina is poor. Both Elvina and Edwin die of despair after being forbidden to marry.
• Abby Nichols of the Family Tree Series is outright told by her social-climbing Rags to Riches father Luther that she has to marry Zander Burley, the son of a prominent family; one of the reasons Luther gives is that since the Burleys are rich, Abby will never have to worry about money again once they're married. Abby turns Zander down, but marries him five years later after living on her own. When he dies—leaving her with three kids and one on the way—widowed Abby learns that Zander spent his writing money as fast as he earned it and she has to clear his many debts. Leaving her to worry about finances for years afterwards.
• Geri Halliwell of The Spice Girls writes in her autobiography If Only that her mother frequently told her to marry a rich man, as the family grew up in poverty. Geri refused to do this, preferring to make her own success.
• Downplayed in The Mug and Spoon. The residents of Weissfelsen, an otherwise poor village, want their daughters to marry well and concoct an elaborate, decades-spanning con to attract potential rich husbands for them. However, the ultimate decision is implied to be left to the girl herself, since Marie chooses to marry an Impoverished Patrician for love.
• In The Nurse from Moscow by Ivan Shmelyov, one of the suitors vying for Avdotya Vasilyevna's hand is a Frenchman whose family is pushing him to marry a wealthy woman (while Avdotya is a seamstress).
• In The Poppy-Seed Flatbread Seller of Lafertovo by Antony Pogorelsky, Ivanovna wants to secure a rich husband for her daughter Masha so much that she contacts her husband's aunt, a witch, who promises to send Masha a superbly wealthy bridegroom. The bridegroom turns out to be the witch's cat in human form (at best since it's implied the creature is really a demon), but while Masha is horrified and even her father, though he doesn't believe her claims that it's a cat, is somewhat suspicious, but Ivanovna, blinded by the prospect of money, insists on the marriage. After Masha formally rejects the witch's gifts, the cat vanishes. Masha ends up in a Perfectly Arranged Marriage with the son of her father's old friend, and Ivanovna is mollified when she learns said friend is very well-off.
• A downplayed example in Pride and Prejudice. Mrs. Bennet would greatly prefer her daughters to marry well, hence her blatantly shipping Jane with wealthy Mr. Bingley; but the Bennets' situation (in the event of Mr. Bennet's death, the daughters would be left with nothing) is so dire that she would be content with just about any son-in-law.

Live-Action TV

• Once Upon a Time:
  • King George adopts James and raises him as his son. Years later, when his kingdom is almost bankrupt, George arranges a marriage between James and Princess Abigail, who is King Midas's daughter. That way, George's kingdom can have access to Midas's endless and fabulous wealth (since, in this continuity, he also has the golden touch).
  • Miller's daughter Cora declares she can change straw into gold as a boast. After Rumplestiltskin teaches her magic in secret, she accomplishes the boast the next day in front of the court and in front of King Xavier, to his delight, since his kingdom's finances have been hit badly by wars, so Xavier betroths her to his son Prince Henry, even though he knows Cora doesn't love the latter and only wants the power that she will gain through the marriage.
  • Cora marries Prince Henry and bears her daughter Regina. Something happens that makes the family lose their money and become landed gentry, moving to a country manor. When Regina saves the life of young Snow White, the latter's father King Leopold proposes to Regina — who is barely a young adult at that point — so that Princess Snow can have a second mother figure, and Cora answers yes on Regina's behalf. As time goes on and the wedding approaches, Cora insists that Regina goes on with the wedding, so she can be a queen, as Cora had wished for her so long ago. Cora goes as far as to murder the stableboy whom Regina loves to prevent the couple from eloping.
  • In the episode "The Other Shoe", it is shown that Cinderella's stepmother, Lady Tremaine, gets the invitation to the royal ball and mutters to her daughters this is the opportunity she worked all her life for: for her daughters to catch a prince as a husband.

Theatre

• In The Betrothal, when the Rich Man, one of Tyltyl's distant ancestors, learns that the mayor's daughter Rosarelle is wealthy, he immediately tries to convince Tyltyl to marry her.
• In The Flying Dutchman, Daland agrees to a marriage between his daughter Senta and the Dutchman without even knowing the latter's name and pushes Senta to accept it too simply because the Dutchman is incredibly rich. Fortunately, Senta is already madly in love with the Dutchman.
• Gianni Schicchi: Rinuccio Donati is in love with poor and lowborn Lauretta Schicchi; his mother, already far from fond of the match, is ready to outright forbid it if she and Rinuccio get disinherited by family patriarch Buoso — in that case, she says, Rinuccio will definitely have to marry well. Thanks to the machinations of Lauretta's father, Lauretta ends up as the richer one of the couple, and she and Rinuccio are free to marry.
• Grey Gardens: J. V. Bouvier stresses to his grandchildren, Edie, Jackie and Lee, the importance of marrying well and securing their future, which he feels Edie's mother failed to do. The future Jackie Kennedy and Lee Radziwill take his advice to heart, but Edie ends up alone and unwed taking care of her mother after her father abandons them.
• A Little Night Music: Madame Armfeldt secured her fortune through a series of affairs with wealthy aristocrats, and expects her daughter to do the same, to the point that she names her "Desiree." Much to her dismay, Desiree becomes an actress who fools around with lawyers.
• In The Snow Maiden, Bobyl and Bobylikha try to persuade their adopted daughter the Snow Maiden to milk her suitors for all their money. When Mizgir, a very rich merchant, falls in love with her, they happily welcome him at their house and push the Snow Maiden to accept him, never mind that she is frightened of him and ashamed since he went for her after dumping her friend.

Video Games

• Genshin Impact: The sidequest series "Leroy" in Fontaine involves Benoit Leroy making his adopted daughter Autumn (technically a blood relative) marry an old rich man; after said man's death, Benoit moves to said man's house. Then he has Autumn marry another man, who was reportedly abusive to her; sometime after she had a daughter with him, she murdered said man, and when she was trialed, Benoit reportedly refused to be the witness for her, leading her to be put into prison. Some characters you meet in the quest believe that Benoit did this just so he can have the house for himself.

Web Animation

• Helluva Boss: In Exes And Oohs, the mafia don Crimson tricks I.M.P into coming to his estate in the Greed Ring in order to force his son Moxxie into a marriage with Moxxie’s (And, incidentally, also Millie’s) ex-boyfriend Chaz. Despite despising the shark and being a massive homophobe, Crimson does this because Chaz has supposedly become filthy rich, and he wants to use Moxxie to get access to those funds as well as the assets Moxxie himself still has in the organization, even going so far as to threaten to kill both Moxxie and Millie if Moxxie disobeys him. He’s not happy when it’s revealed that Chaz is a Mock Millionaire who made his fortune up as a way to get access to Moxxie’s family’s money in turn, and this leads to him killing Chaz and mounting his jaws up on his wall as a trophy.

Western Animation

• American Dad!: In "Longest Distance Relationship", Stan Smith is insistent that Hayley should marry millionaire Matt Davis, simply so he can enjoy the perks of having a rich son-in-law.
• In the backstory of Bojack Horseman, Princess Carolyn got pregnant by the son of her mother's wealthy employer, and her mother tried to use this to get her married into her employer's family. Unfortunately for everyone, Princess Carolyn suffered a miscarriage, so the betrothal was cancelled and she was instead packed off to Los Angeles to attend UCLA.
• Harley Quinn (2019): Harley's family keeps pressuring her to marry a doctor and live a comfortable life on his dime. Harley's rebuttal is that she is a doctor and could make that money if she wanted, but she has more fun being a criminal.

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