1. Introduction

1The vexing question of the origin of proverbs has occupied scholars for a long time, with Archer Taylor dedicating an entire section to “The Origins of the Proverb” in his invaluable book on The Proverb [1931: 3-65]. His friend Bartlett Jere Whiting of similar renown as a paremiologist and paremiographer published his classic article on “The Origin of the Proverb” [1931] at the same time, thus laying the groundwork for later studies dealing with this intriguing matter, including now “Origin of Proverbs” (Mieder [2015]). Following the Finnish historical-geographic method of tracing individual fairy tales, numerous monographs and articles showed how a particular proverb might have originated in classical, medieval, or later times and then spread by way of loan translations to other languages and cultures with slight variations along the way (Mieder [2009]). Proverb dictionaries citing historical references have done their share in establishing the origin and dissemination of individual proverbs. Of course, such attempts continue to this day, with the essays on “Praise not the day before the night” (Dundes [2000], Grigas [1998], Paczolay [1997: 323-326]), “Time is money” (Villers & Mieder [2017]) and “The cake is a lie” (Villers [2018]) being recent examples. Of particular interest in this regard is Stephen Winick’s essay “Proverb is as Proverb Does: Forrest Gump, the Catchphrase, and the Proverb” [2013].

2Naturally, such investigations also confronted the question of what makes a certain concise text a proverb. Shirley Arora’s by now classic article “The Perception of Proverbiality” [1984] and Damien Villers’ more recent study “Marqueurs stylistiques : Leur poids dans la définition et la genèse des proverbes“ [2017] have dealt with this in great deal, discussing in particular certain markers (alliteration, ellipsis, parallelism, rhyme, etc.) that help to set a proverb apart from a normal sentence. And yet, even though a short statement might exhibit several such indicators, they do not necessarily suffice to make it a proverb. In order to qualify as such, it would have to gain traditionality, i.e., currency together with frequency of appearance in multifaceted contexts over a period of time. Without that, a text that seems to be a proverb is at best a “proverb-like” statement or for lack of a better term a “pseudo-proverb” (Eismann [2007]). It should be noted, however, that Stephen D. Winick in his article on “Intertextuality and Innovation in a Definition of the Proverb Genre” [2003] has argued against the requirement of traditionality, stating that a text becomes a proverb upon its creation (Mieder [2004: 4-13]). Of greatest importance are also Villers’ articles “Proverbiogenesis: The Phases of Proverbial Birth” [2016] and “What Makes a Good Proverb? On the Birth and Propagation of Proverbs” [2022] as well as his discussion “Proverbiogenèse et obsolescence: La naissance et la mort des proverbs” [2015], showing for once that proverbs are not only created and employed but also “die”, if they are no longer appropriate for changed times. In short, it might be stated that “A proverb is a concise statement of an apparent truth which has, has had, or will have currency among the people” (Mieder [2004: 4]).

3Of particular interest has been the fact that certain structures or patterns developed that served as the basis of new proverbs. Thus numerous proverbs follow such long established formulas like “No X, no Y”, “Like X, like Y”, and “Where there is X, there is Y”, with new patterns, somewhat surprisingly, still being created. The most productive new pattern is “There is no such thing as X” on which are based such modern proverbs as “There is no such thing as a stupid question” (1915), “There is no such thing as a free lunch” (1917), “There is no such thing as a definitive study” (1936), “There is no such thing as a free ride” (1949), “There is no such thing as too much sex” (1961), etc. (Doyle, Mieder & Shapiro [2012], Mieder [2022]). Some time ago, Wayland D. Hand in “A Classical Proverb-Pattern in Germany” (1937) presented historical texts following the structure “X is the mother (brother, father, etc.) of Y”, but there are also broader publications looking at numerous well-stablished patterns in English and other languages that have proven to be productive for new proverbs (Peukes [1977], Wilczek [2006]).

2. The “X makes strange bedfellows” structural pattern

4Be that as it may, the present investigation is a case study of the English structural pattern “X makes strange bedfellows,” whose origin for once is relatively easy to establish since it begins with the quotation from William Shakespeare’s romance The Tempest [1611]: “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.” Of course, surveying its reduction from literary quotation to the proverb “Misery makes strange bedfellows” and the creation of subsequent proverbs based on its structure is a major task. I want to note here that Pavel Dronov from the Institute of Linguistics at the Russian Academy of Sciences at Moscow submitted his short article “‘What Makes What Bedfellows’: Proverbs vs. Phraseoschemata” [2021] to me about two years ago while I had started to collect references for my own study on the proverb “Politics makes strange bedfellows.” I was thrilled to publish it in my Proverbium, realizing that the barely four pages that Dronov dedicated to the proverb did not preempt my own work. He does not refer to Shakespeare, nor does he deal with the historical propagation of a number of variants in any detail. His interest is primarily in establishing that the variant “Politics makes strange bedfellows” is based on the “phraseoscheme” (I use rather such terms as structure or pattern) “X makes strange bedfellows”. He mentions that “misery” and “adversity” appear as variables of “X”, cites a few contextualized examples, and also quotes some anti-proverbs of “Politics makes strange bedfellows.”

5There is then, as will be seen from the following pages good reason to have continued my own historical detective work based on contextualized references that I have divided into the following sections:

• Misery acquaints a man with (makes) strange bedfellows

• Misfortune acquaints us with (makes) strange bedfellows

• Necessity makes us acquainted with (makes) strange bedfellows

• Adversity makes strange bedfellows

• Poverty makes strange bedfellows

• Interlude before the final “X makes strange bedfellows” proverb

• Politics makes strange bedfellows

• Excursus

3. Misery acquaints a man with (makes) strange bedfellows

Trinculo: Here’s neither bush nor shrub to bear off any weather at all. And another storm brewing, I hear it sing i’ th’ wind. […] Alas, the storm is come again! My best way is to creep under his [the slave Caliban’s] gaberdine; there is no other shelter hereabout. Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows; I will here shroud till the dregs of the storm be past.
William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1611 (Act 2, Scene 2, lines 18-41)
Bartlett 2012: 224, no. 23, Shapiro 2021: 752, no. 441.

6Since this is Shakespeare’s original formulation from 1611, Robert Dent could not possibly have recorded it as a new proverb in his compilation of the Proverbial Language in English Drama Exclusive of Shakespeare, 1495-1616 [1984]. As an aside it should also be observed that what might be considered a proverb or proverbial phrase coined by Shakespeare might well prove to be quite older than the bard (Winick [2018]). But to continue, Morris Palmer Tilley also did not include it in his invaluable A Dictionary of the Proverbs in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries [1950], signaling that it had not taken on the status of a proverb. When it was cited at all, it was in various editions of Shakespeare’s romance. However, by the beginning of the nineteenth century Shakespeare’s bon mot had become an independent but not particularly “folksy” proverb so that Robert Dent could include it as such in his Shakespeare’s Proverbial Language. An lndex [1981: 56]. Of course, Shakespeare’s name would remain attached to it by those who were aware of its dramatic beginning. As time passed the original formulation was quite naturally reduced to “Misery makes strange bedfellows” that became the preferred proverb in the nineteenth century. But as one would expect, lexicographers and paremiographers have registered the two forms together:

Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows:
Stevenson 1948: 1591, no. 10
Taylor and Whiting 1958: 246
Dent 1981: 56
Apperson 1929: 418
Wilson 1970: 535
Speake 2015: 3

7Newer dictionaries and collections have reduced the lemma to the more prevalent shortened proverb:

Misery makes strange bedfellows:
Whiting 1977: 292
Mieder, Kingsbury, and Harder 1992: 413
Titelman 1996: 233
Manser and Fergusson 2002: 161

8The trend from Shakespeare’s original literary quotation to the shortened anonymous proverb is demonstrated by the following contextualized references, with the earliest citation of “Misery makes strange bedfellows” stemming from 1816. The first reference from a letter of John Adams to his wife Abigail of March 25, 1813, obviously deals with political matters and hints perhaps at the later mutation of the proverb to the popular “Politics make strange bedfellows”. Of course, the 1841 reference “Misery makes strange bedfellows, but surely politics stranger still” makes this innovation even more obvious. It should also be noticed that the introductory formula “says the proverb” of the 1823 reference shows that the Shakespeare quotation became regarded as an anonymous proverb, albeit with limited circulation among the general population.

1813: We had been assured that the federalists were to vote for Mr. De Witt Clinton as President, and Mr. Jared Ingersoll as Vice President, candidates so singularly coupled together, and the first of them so strange a name for a federal candidate, that I assure you it was long before I believed it possible that it should be so, and for which even now I can account only upon the principle of Shakespeare’s Trinculo that, “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.”
Writings of John Quincy Adams, ed. Worthington Ford. New York: Macmillan, 1914, IV, 456.

1816: Brethren in Misfortune – The Pawnbroker’s Shop – An Unexpected Meeting Creates a Endured Friendship – Thus Misery Makes Strange Bed-Fellows.
J.A. Maitland, The Watchman: A Tale. London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1816, 38 (chapter heading).

1823: “Misery,” says the proverb, “makes a man acquainted with strange bedfellows.” September may be said to generate associations equally extraordinary.
The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal, 8 (1823), 356.

1833: “Misery,” it is said, “brings us into strange company” – so does misery’s opposite, pleasure. Here are singular combinations, not be explained by any of the established rules of affinity, attraction, or cohesion.
James Hall, The Soldier’s Bride and Other Tales. Philadelphia: Key and Biddle, 1833, 162.

1838: Literature, like misery, makes men acquainted with strange bed-fellows. Let us return from the worthy Shepherd of Ettrick to the courtly wit and scholar of Sunninghill.
J.G. Lockhart, Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart. Philadelphia: Varey, Lea, & Blanchard, 1838, II, 22.

1841: Misery makes strange bedfellows, but surely politics stranger still; and there could not have been a more striking instance of it that in Lord Bulfinch and Mr. O’Gibbet sitting side by side – as great a contrast in their persons as in their characters.
Samuel Warren, Ten Thousand A-Year. Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1841, III, 64.

1841: Misery makes a man acquainted with strange bedfellows.
Caption of a cartoon by John Doyle. London: T. McLean, 1841.

1851: Misery makes us unacquainted with strange bedfellows, Judge.
Sylvester Judd, Margaret: A Tale of the Real and Ideal Blight and Bloom. Boston: Philips, Sampson, 1851, 100.

1852: Kidnapping, like misery, “makes strange bedfellows.” Three things all the speakers on that occasion developed in common: A hearty abhorrence of the right; a uniform contempt for the eternal law of God; a common desire to kidnap a man.
Theodore Parker, The Boston Kidnapping: A Discourse to Commemorate the Rendition of Thomas Simms. Boston: Crosby, Nichols, 1852, 30.

1860: A handsome young fellow in New York, in great distress for want of money, married last week a rich old woman of seventy. He was no doubt miserable for want of money, and she for want of a husband; and “misery makes strange bedfellows.”
A joke by G.D. Prentice in the Louisville Journal, ca. 1860, cited from Berman 1997: 276.

1892: Misery makes strange bedfellows.
Henry Holt, Calmire. New York: Macmillan, 1892, 470 (chapter title).

1898: They say misery makes strange bedfellow, but peril surely makes bed-brothers of strangers.
Margaret Sutton Briscoe, Jimty, and Others. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1898, 8.

1905: If misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows, it is because she loves company and is no respecter of persons, introducing a peer to a peasant with the finest disregard of tradition and convention, confounding both without apology, and being confounded (to use no harsher word) by both.
Horace A. Vachell, The Procession of Life. London: Eveleigh Nash, 1905, 260.

1907: If it is true that “misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows,” equally true is it that district-visiting acquaints a lady with strange experiences. There is a naturalness about the district-visited classes, which is unhappily wanting elsewhere.
The Rutland Magazine, 3, no. 18 (1907), 60.

1966: “Misery makes strange bedfellows.” When misery disappears, a new atmosphere is created. The end of colonization ushered in for the local ruling elite the opportunity to exercise power, for the first time.
John Karefa-Smart, Africa: Progress Through Cooperation. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1966, 41.

1974: If it is true that misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows, then so does success. Who could have supposed, ten years ago, that the austere Pierre Boulez would be heard to conduct the New York Philharmonic in a chorus and orchestral piece.
The New Yorker (February 11, 1974), 101. It is perhaps no surprise that this highbrow magazine cites Shakespeare’s text once again.

1984: I had Abishai transfer him far away from me to the front of our pathetic column, well out of earshot and closer to Bathsheba, whom he’d vilified as a harlot, and with whom he is now in league. Misery makes strange bedfellows.
Joseph Heller, God Knows. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1984, 205.

1992: The fifth-largest bank, Security Pacific, might provide both the portfolio distribution and cost savings for a strong merger candidate. Egos were cited as an inhibiting factor, but misery makes strange bedfellows.
Stephen Delos Wilson, The Bankruptcy of America. Germantown, Tennessee: Ridge Mills Press, 1992, 94.

1994: Misery makes strange bedfellows. Father Superior said grace before breakfast and there followed a fine rasping of chain as all the postulants and all the Brothers sat down together at the table of the Lord.
John F. Deane, Free Range. Dublin: Wolfhound Press, 1994, 132.

2009: As you know, “misery makes strange bedfellows.” And in our current situation, let’s just say that it serves our interest to ally ourselves with some of those bedfellows against a mutual enemy.
Paul Block and Robert Vaughan, Armor of God. A Thriller. New York: Forge, 2009, 195.

9It should be noted that Shakespeare’s statement was, of course, translated into many languages without becoming proverbial. In German it became “Die Not bringt einen zu seltsamen Schlafgesellen” which Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Wander included together with Shakespeare’s English text in that wording in his Deutsches Sprichwörter-Lexikon [1867-1880: V, 1637, no. 384]. Wander had a very broad understanding of proverbiality and registered items that were not proverbs in the usual understanding of that term. In other words, the German translation did not reach a proverbial status in the German language!

10As a final comment, it is of interest to draw attention to the somewhat related old English proverb “Wealth and content are not always bedfellows” (Fuller [1732: 238], Stevenson [1948: 2474, no. 10], Whiting [1977: 476], Mieder, Kingsbury & Harder [1992: 645]). Even though the ingenious proverbialist Benjamin Franklin copied the proverb out of Thomas Fuller’s important collection Gnomologia; Adagies and Proverbs; Wise Sentences and Witty Sayings, Ancient and Modern, Foreign and British [1732] for his Poor Richard’s Almanack of 1749 (Barbour [1974: 231], Mieder [2021: 192]), it never really caught on widely in the United States and has also long disappeared out of British usage.

4. Misfortune acquaints us with (makes) strange bedfellows

11Attention also needs to be drawn to the variant “Misfortune makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows” that gained some currency in the nineteenth century and was recorded in the state of Illinois in the second half of the twentieth century as “Misfortunes cause queer bedfellows” (Mieder, Kingsbury & Harder [1992: 413]). Here are a few isolated references, with the first one and also the text from 1893 once again hinting at the soon to arise proverb “Politics makes strange bedfellows”:

1838: The great poet of nature [most likely Shakespeare] has somewhere observed that “misfortune makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows,” but it would appear that politics effect unions still more incongruous.
Anthony Meyler, Irish Tranquility under Mr. O’Connell, My Lord Mulgrave, and the Romish Priesthood. Dublin: Wm. Carson, 1838, 52.

1847: An interesting group: “Misfortune makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows.”
Caption of a cartoon by John Doyle. London: T. McLean, 1847.

1883: Misfortune makes strange bedfellows, and our young man, feeling that he had something at stake in the matter – it usually seemed to him to be his reputation for common sense – devoted to his unattractive protégé an amount of attention of which note was duly taken, and which had at least the effect of keeping the poor fellow alive.
Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady. London: Macmillan, 1883, I, 42.

1893: There’s an old saying that misfortune makes strange bedfellows, but political friendship makes stranger alliances than misfortune.
Anthony Trollope, The Prime Minister. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1893, 295-296.

1921: Misfortune makes strange bedfellows. It was either that or starvation.
George Gibbs, The Vagrant Duke. New York: D. Appleton, 1921, 196.

1952: “The lady has transferred her affections to a duke, and Pat has gone back to his wife.” “Well, well!” said John Barry. “Misfortune makes strange bedfellows.”
Serjeant A.M. Sullivan, The Last Serjeant. London: Macdonald, 1952, 136.

12As can be seen, the longer “Misfortune makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows” is reduced to “Misfortune makes strange bedfellows” over time, just as was the case with the two “misery” proverbs.

5. Necessity makes us acquainted with (makes) strange bedfellows

13Still based on Shakespeare’s “Misery makes a man acquainted with strange bedfellows” yet another variant developed quite early without becoming particularly dominant, finding its way into Lean’s Collectanea: Collections of Vincent Stuckey Lean of Proverbs (English & Foreign), Folk Lore, and Superstitions, also Compilations towards Dictionaries of Proverbial Phrases and Words, Old and Disused [1902-1904: IV, 55] and shortened to the almost expected “Necessity makes strange bedfellows” in A Dictionary of American Proverbs (Mieder, Kingsbury & Harder [1992: 425]). Here are a few contextualized references, starting in the late eighteenth century, with the second text clearly showing that it varies Shakespeare’s original. The third text with its introductory formula “the old saying is a very true one” is a sign that this variant is considered proverbial at the time:

1794: But necessity makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows.
The Analytical Review, or History of Literature, Domestic and Foreign, 19 (1794), 287.

1797: He [the Duke of Leeds] mentioned having himself been in Opposition once, when a member of the House of Commons, and he learnt at that time, that the motives of every man in opposition were not always to be justified; necessity “makes men acquainted with strange bedfellows,” as Trinculo says of misery in the Tempest, when he covers himself from the storm by hiding under Caliban’s gaberdine.
William Woodfall, An Impartial Report of the Debates that Occur in the Two Houses of Parliament. London: T. Chapman, 1797, III, 378.

1862: Jane had all the household care upon her shoulders now, and a great portion of the household work. Though an active domestic manager, she had known nothing practically of the more menial work of a house; she knew it only too well now. The old saying is a very true one: “Necessity makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows.”
Mrs. Henry Wood, Mrs. Halliburton’s Troubles. London: Richard Bentley, 1862, 166.

1907: “You have a saying in England,” he continued, “which, if I remember it rightly, says that necessity makes strange bedfellows. I myself am going into a strange country upon a strange errand.”
E. Phillips Oppenheim, The Secret. London: Ward Lock, 1907, 185.

1927: A murmur of voices ascended from separate pairs of men, and John Chambers observed that Mr. Bowlby had again approached Mrs. Bartlett, accompanied by the public librarian. Necessity makes strange bedfellows and these two, who disliked each other very heartily, now made common cause in the interest not only of justice but, as Mr. Knox pointed out, for the credit and good name of these companions in adversity.
Eden Phillpotts, The Jury. New York: Macmillan,1927, 106.

1963: When I returned from my evening walk, I found the double bed occupied by a young Chinese; I had to share it with him, as the hotels were all packed and there were no more beds to be had. I suppose I couldn’t expect much more for three dollars a night. Necessity does indeed acquaint us with strange bedfellows. We were plagued all night by mosquitoes.
James Kirkup, Tropic Temper. A Memoir of Malaya. London: Collins, 1963, 82.

14It is interesting to note that the 1907 text refers to the shortened “Neccessity makes strange bedfellows” with the introductory formula “you have a saying in England,” thus making a claim of its proverbiality. And yet, Shakespeare’s longer original chimes in once again in the last reference. Old quotations turned proverb die hard!

6. Adversity makes strange bedfellows

15This short proverb appears under its lemma “Adversity makes strange bedfellows” in several more recent proverb dictionaries (Mieder, Kingsbury & Harder [1992: 9], Titelman [1996: 3], Pickering [1997: 3], Manser &Fergusson [2002: 2], Speake [2015: 3]). It is surprising that the earliest reference found thus far is from 1817, i.e., a time when other variants are still based on Shakespeare’s use of the verb “acquaint”:

1817: In politics and war, and all that relates to the great concerns of human life and character, Buonaparte conceived to be his best adviser, and took him to his pillow, and consulted him when he would not commit himself to his counsellors: for prosperity as well as adversity makes strange bedfellows.
William O’Regan, Memoirs of the Legal, Literary, and Political Life of John Philpot Curran. London: James Harper, 1817, 175.

16And yet, Charles Dickens, twenty years later in his Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club [1837], could not resist but to bring Shakespeare’s longer “acquainting” formula into play one more time:

1837: Chapter XLII. Illustrative, like the preceding one, of the old Proverb, that Adversity brings a Man acquainted with strange Bed-fellows. Likewise containing Mr. Pickwick’s extraordinary and startling announcement to Mr. Samuel Weller.
Charles Dickens, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989, 586 (chapter title). Bryan and Mieder 1997: 45.

17Such introductory formulas as “the old adage”, “how true the adage”, “they say” and “proverbial wisdom” (Čermák [2004]) are clear indications that in the following references the shorter variant “Adversity makes strange bedfellows” had become a proverb in its own right by the end of the nineteenth century. The first text is of special interest since it includes a well-intended anti-proverb to boot:

1898: The old adage that “Adversity makes strange bedfellows” was never more truly exemplified than in the case of Prince Charles during this period of his life and might be varied to “Adversity makes unexpected friends.”
William Drummond-Norie, Loyal Lochaber and Its Associations. Historical, Genealogical, and Traditionary. Glasgow: Morison Brothers, 1898, 272.

1902: Even the major, whose real estate represented such vast wealth, was awaiting the hour when the charity of the foe he had so long opposed should alleviate the pangs of hunger gnawing at the vitals of his household. How strange his fate! How true the adage, “Adversity makes strange bedfellows.”
J. Cabaniss Underwood, Gilbert; or Then and Now. A Thrilling Story of the Life and Achievement of a Virginia Negro. Philadelphia: H.D. Schaiffer, 1902, 201.

1954: They say adversity makes strange bedfellows, and as I look at the Pact between the USA and Japan, so soon after Pearl Harbor, and the rearming of Germany, I began to understand.
Learie Constantine, Colour Bar. London: Stanley Paul, 1954, 77.

1960: Of course it was going to be extremely disagreeable. Nothing was clearer to him than that he had disliked the woman. But beggars, he told himself grimly, can’t be choosers. And adversity makes strange bedfellows. Petticate frowned in distaste at the implications of the second piece of proverbial wisdom. There wouldn’t, at least, be any question of that.
Michael Innes, The New Sonia Wayward. London: Victor Gollancz, 1960, 150.

18Fascinating how the author of this last text has one character linking two proverbs as rationalizing statements together and then has Petticate interpret the “bedfellows” rather literally, indicating that as far as she is concerned there won’t be any sleeping together. Together this serves as a fine example of the complexity of proverb instantiations in general that reveal the polysituativity, polyfuntionality, and polysemanticity of such contextualized proverbial wisdom (Mieder [2004: 9; 132]).

7. Poverty makes strange bedfellows

19According to lexicographers and paremiographers this variant is clearly an independent proverb, even though a couple of references have been found where the proverb includes the Shakespeare “acquaint” verb showing its indebtedness to his formulation at the beginning (Stevenson [1948: 1845, no. 5], Apperson [1929: 508-509], Taylor & Whiting [1958: 294], Manser & Fergusson [2002: 194], Bryan & Mieder [2005: 605-606], Speake [2015: 3]). It comes as a surprise that A Dictionary of American Proverbs [1992] with its fifteen thousand proverbs collected by way of fieldwork between 1945 and 1985 has not registered the proverb that must have been somewhat current. Instead one finds the rather positive proverb “Poverty makes good fellowship” as registered in the state of Texas (Mieder, Kingsbury & Harder [1992: 477]). Perhaps it was meant as an anti-proverbial antidote structurally based on “Poverty makes strange bedfellows”. It is not surprising perhaps that Thomas Chandler Haliburton and William Makepeace Thackeray as celebrated literary authors still relied on Shakespeare’s “makes acquainted with” component:

1838: I hope I don’t intrude, gentlemen, said he; but you see Dulhanty, poor fellow, has but one room, and poverty makes us acquainted with strange bed-fellows sometimes.
Thomas Chandler Haliburton, The Clockmaker; or the Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick. London: Richard Bentley, 1838, 300.

1849: The boy looked up with a smile of scorn on his lips. “Yes, I know what life is, and I say that life, like poverty has strange bedfellows. Ask me what life is now, and I say a melodrama.”
Edward Bulwer Lytton, The Caxtons. A Family Picture. Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1849, I, 116.

1858: But life has its moments of grandeur as well as degeneracy and decay, and poverty makes strange bedfellows.
Masonic Magazine, 2 (1858), 227.

1863: An illustration of that dismal proverb which tells us how poverty makes us acquainted with strange bed-fellows, this poor old shaking body has to lay herself down every night in her workhouse bed by the side of some other old woman with whom she may or may not agree. She herself can’t be a very pleasant bed-fellow, poor thing! With her shaking old limbs and cold feet. She lies awake a deal of the night, to be sure, not thinking of happy old times, for hers never were happy; but sleepless with aches, and agues, and rheumatism of old age.
William Makepeace Thackeray, “On Some Carp at Sans Souci.” The Cornhill Magazine, 7 (1863), 126-131 (here 126). Also in W.M. Thackeray, Roundabout Papers. Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1869, II, 191.

1896: In other words there was, and is, an instinct amongst reactionaries that the Socialists have been leading the Liberals and are the real enemies, and it is a true instinct, though politics, like poverty, makes strange bedfellows, and it is rather amusing to see some of our Whip friends dismissed from their seats on the ground of their being the allies of dangerous revolutionaries.
The Forum, 21 (1896), 199.

1900: Extreme poverty often leads to intemperance. It is an old saying that “poverty makes strange bedfellows.” Often the very poor, however honest and worthy they may be, are compelled to live in close contact with the vicious and degraded, who nearly all drink.
The Religious Telescope, 66 (April 18, 1900), 490.

1912: He thinks “Poverty makes strange bedfellows” a poor proverb, and that wealth makes stranger bedfellows! Here, again, he misses the whole point of the proverb, which is that poverty forces a man, a knight, for instance, or a baronet, to share a bed with a tinker in a lodging house. Wealth can choose its bedfellows, poverty has no choice.
The Publishers’ Circular, 97 (July 20, 1912), 57.

1912: They do not lose their tempers and fight with each other because they are poor or destitute, but poverty makes strange bedfellows and forces people to rub against one another in such a way as to give occasion for trouble.
James Devon, The Criminal and the Community. London: John Lane, 1912, 83.

1915: Whether this yarn is true or not it illustrates the truth of the old adage “Poverty makes strange bedfellows.” In this story as above related is typefied the pecuniary distress of many of us.
The Phi Alpha Gamma Quarterly, 14 (February 1915), 16.

1916: If poverty makes strange bedfellows, war makes strange yokefellows. – I mean, how it mixes us all up. We here get men in Khaki from the camp to tea, & discover under their uniform men of every profession: lawyers, artists, bankers, etc. etc. all painted one colour for the nonce.
The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy, eds. Richard Little Purdy and Michael Millgate. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985, V, 149 (letter of March 15, 1916).

1930: We found it necessary to let one of the rooms. My wife and I decided that, even if we had to take strangers into our home, we would be very careful whom we took in. Poverty makes strange bedfellows. Figuratively speaking, that is.
Herman Landon, The Brass Elephants. New York Horace Liveright,1930, 34-35.

1954: And the books – bookcases ran around two sides of the room, crammed with volumes, mostly old and well worn. The very richness of Ashwin’s tastes resembled poverty in its quality of making strange bedfellows. The best available edition of Valmiki’s great epic, the Ramayana, leaned topheavily upon a cheap copy of Conan Doyle.
Anthony Boucher, The Case of the Seven of Calvary. New York: Macmillan, 1954, 38-39.

20This last reference cites the proverb in an expanded way without losing its obvious meaning. And yet, in the text immediately above a speaker finds it necessary to stress that the proverb “Poverty makes strange bedfellows” is to be understood figuratively! He would not want to give the impression that his wife and he were renting out one of their rooms for illegitimate activities. In any case, the proverb is well known, as indicated by such introductory markers as “an old saying”, “a poor proverb”, and “the old adage”. Of special interest is finally the expanded statement “politics, like poverty, makes strange bedfellows” from 1896. The writer appears to know the proverb “Poverty makes strange bedfellows” and prefaces it by “politics” to make the point that it too makes strange bedfellows. However, as the next section will show, “Politics makes strange bedfellows” was well establish by the end of the nineteenth century. In other words, the writer might have quite consciously and intentionally combined the two proverbs into a convincing statement.

8. Interlude before the final “X makes strange bedfellows” proverb

21It would be natural to assume that “Politics makes strange bedfellows” had its start by altering the already discussed proverbs claiming with the same well-established structure that misery, misfortune, adversity, and poverty make strange bedfellows. Archer Taylor, the doyen of international paremiology and paremiography, includes a few enlightening lines on this matter in the section on “The Origins of the Proverb” (3-65) in his invaluable book on The Proverb [1931], where he deals with “proverbial types modelled on other proverbs” (16-22):

Politics makes strange bedfellows is evidently a derivative of Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows [Shakespeare!] and Poverty makes strange bedfellows. Such recently invented proverbs as Politics makes strange bedfellows and One man does not make a team show that new formations on old models are still possible in tradition; but forces which are not easy to name or estimate determine whether a proverbial type becomes widely creative. Clearly the first and most important requirement is familiarity with the formula. A single proverb is often widely enough known to supply a model for many nonce-formulations. A second requirement is the applicability of the formula. Not all formulae can give rise to new proverbs. (Taylor [1931: 20])

22This extremely important insight hits the proverbial nail on the head! Taylor even begins the next paragraph with the caveat that “occasionally the history of a proverbial type is difficult to decipher” (20), as can be seen from the multitude of historical references for various proverbs that were created on the formula “X makes strange bedfellows”. Taylor did not undertake any diachronic analysis of the “politics”-proverb and thus makes the mistake of calling it a “recently invented proverb”. It does go back to Shakespeare, but it is most likely older than the “poverty”-proverb that Taylor considered to be a precursor (Browne [1968: 196]).

23In any case, Taylor’s point of “X makes strange bedfellows” being a structural model for new proverbs is perfectly true! But whether texts formed on the model are in fact proverbial needs to be proven historically in each case, as the textual examples in the previous sections show. Some rephrasings might well be creative but not necessarily accepted generally (Olinick [1987: 467], Honeck & Welge [1997]) or reinforced by use (Taft [1979: 11]). For example, the following texts with “troubles”. “war”, and “statecraft” must be considered unique “one-day wonders” without any claim to proverbiality. Additional diachronic references would have to be found over time:

1864: As increasing troubles made strange bedfellows, the Melitian schismatics and the Arian heretics, once deadly enemies, became sworn allies against their common enemy Athanasius.
Arthur Penryn Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church. New York: Charles Scribner, 1864, 255.

1964: A war beats even politics for making strange bedfellows. The next thing I knew I was working with or sitting beside notables that I never dreamed I would meet.
John Kieran, Not Under Oath. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Company, 1964, 120.

1980: Even enemies have something in common, Statecraft produces strange bedfellows; but the sword between them guarantees the continuance of statecraft.
Peter van Greenaway, The Dissident. London: Victor Gollancz, 1980, 135.

24A few more references for the formula with “war” have been found but not enough to justify declaring a new distinct proverb of “War makes strange bedfellows” as yet.

25Things are a bit different with “Business makes strange bedfellows” that has been registered in A Dictionary of American Proverbs (Mieder, Kingsbury & Harder [1992: 75]). As the following historical references show, it had its beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century in the United States with a letter of January 21, 1854, by Henry David Thoreau, gaining plenty of currency ever since. Archer Taylor would have been excited to see a proof that it was coined on the structural model “Misery makes strange bedfellows” as the early reference from 1854 indicates. And the second reference from 1884 shows that the older proverb “Politics makes strange bedfellows” might just as well have been the model:

1854: When I sit in the parlors and kitchens of some with whom my business brings me – I was going to say in contact – (business, like misery, makes strange bedfellows), I feel a sort of awe, and as forlorn as if I were cast away on a desolate shore.
Familiar Letters of Henry David Thoreau, ed. F.B. Sanborn. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1894, 273.

1884: Man will be stimulated to excel man, and woman to rival woman in all things worthy of emulation; and the colonist will be left greater liberty to select his or her companionship than is possible in our present state of disorganized society where politics and business make strange bedfellows.
Albert K. Owen, Integral Cooperation. Its Practical Application. New York: John W. Lovell, 1884, 145-146.

1911: “I understand,” commented Blind Charlie, with a soft sympathy that Katherine knew was meant to bite like acid. “It’s hard for a respectable man like you to mix up with Charlie Peck. But political business makes strange bedfellows, and unless you’re willing to sleep with almost anybody, you’d better keep out of this kind of thing altogether. After all,” he added, “I guess it’s better to share a good bed than to have no bed at all.”
Leroy Scott, “Counsel for the Defense.” Munsey’s Magazine, 46 (December 1911), 446.

1922: That the engineers, architects, chemists – the technical and professional experts in general – should cast their lots with the labor unions in some great controversy, like that of the building trades, seems quite unbelievable. But business makes strange bedfellows and self-interest is almost a law of nature.
The Chemical Bulletin, 9, no. 2 (February 1922), 29.

1975: “What we should find out is why, all of a sudden, he’s willing to do so much as loan them the money. Business makes strange bedfellows, as the saying goes, but does he have to do business with them?”
David Williams, The Burning Wood. Toronto: Anansi, 1975, 182.

1986: She turns a bad deal into a good hustle, markets her pain for pity, sells her pain for a few coins, exaggerates her pain for a few more coins, and business makes strange bedfellows, familiarity breeds not contempt but comfort.
Gabrielle Burton, Heartbreak Hotel. New York: Scribner, 1986, 186.

2011: They say business makes strange bedfellows. Well, that held true, since George wanted me to come to work for his company. He recruited me harder than I have ever been recruited to come over to his company. It wasn’t an easy decision.
Michael Cooley, Rock Bottom. From the Streets to Success. Mustang, Oklahoma: Tate, 2011, 182.

26Introducing the proverb with “they say” signifies its common currency in the modern age. But one would not automatically think that it originated as early as the 1850s. It was thought at first that it would be a candidate for The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs (Charles Clay Doyle, Wolfgang Mieder, and Fred R. Shapiro 2012) that registers proverbs not older than the year 1900. But once it was established that it was older, it had to be excluded. That is not to say that it should not be included as a definite proverb in updated or new proverb dictionaries! It is an unfortunate truth that too many newer proverbs fail to be identified and registered by lexicographers and paremiographers (Doyle [1996]). And how about the related variant “Economics makes strange bedfellows” that makes a lot of sense? It appeared as a book title by J.W. Verret as Economics Makes Strange Bedfellows. Pensions, Trusts, and Hedge Funds in an Era of Financial Re-Intermediation (Arlington, Virginia: George Mason University School of Law, 2009). Not yet having appeared in multiple written publications and oral transcripts before or since 2009, it has not reached the status of a modern proverb – but it might well do so in time!

9. Politics makes strange bedfellows

27Of all the proverbs discussed thus far, “Politics makes strange bedfellows” is without doubt the most popular and frequently cited. No wonder that it appears in most of the major proverb dictionaries of the past few decades, either with the verb printed as “makes” or “make”, depending whether “politics” is considered a singular or plural noun (Stevenson [1948: 1829, no. 7], Whiting [1977: 343], Taylor & Whiting [1958: 291], [Hirsch, Kett & Trefil [1988: 54], Whiting [1989: 504], Mieder, Kingsbury & Harder [1992: 472], Jay [1996: 378], Titelman [1996: 279], Pickering [1997: 213], Manser & Fergusson [2002: 192], Speake [2015: 251], Mieder [2021: 149]). A few of them state that it was adapted from Shakespeare’s “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows” from 1611 and appearing as “Party politics, like poverty, bring men ‘acquainted with strange bedfellows’” in Philip Hone’s diary of July 3, 1839, as registered below. But not too fast! Here is the earliest development of the “politics” proverb to its first appearance in the standard form of “Politics makes strange bedfellows”. As will become clear, it does in fact begin with an alteration of Shakespeare’s text as early as 1797:

1797: If that respectable name [of a doctor Parr] was not abused on the occasion, I can only say that politics, like misery, “brings a man acquainted with strange bedfellows”!
William Gifford, The Baviad and Maeviad. London: J. Wright, 1797,126-127.

1832: So we find Mr. Mumford and Mr. Webb drawing lovingly together in the same traces! Verily, politics do make strange bedfellows.
Working Man’s Advocate, 3, no. 30 (New York, Saturday, March 10, 1832), 1.

28This last reference establishes the proverb without Shakespeare’s “acquaint” reference as being of American origin, unless an earlier citation were to be found. I owe this reference to my friend Fred R. Shapiro (letter of February 23, 2023), who credits Ben Zimmer for having informed him of it. Thanks are due Scott Lovelette from the interlibrary loan service at the University of Vermont for finding the original magazine page.

29Seven years later, however, Philip Hone returns to Shakespeare’s “acquaint” reference in a diary entry of July 3, 1839, linking politics and poverty. Perhaps he had come across Thomas Chandler Haliburton’s reference from 1838 cited above as “Poverty makes us acquainted with strange bed-fellows sometimes”:

1839: During the President’s [Van Buren] stay in New York he has visited most of the public places in the constant custody of a set of men who are not (unless he has greatly changed) the sort of folks he would have chosen for his associates; but party politics, like poverty, bring men “acquainted with strange bedfellows.”
The Diary of Philip Hone, ed. Bayard Tuckerman. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1889, I, 365.

30Another ten years later the proverb appears as “Politics make strange bedfellows” again that has remained the standard form until today. It was stated during a debate in the United States Congress on “The Slavery Question” in 1849:

1849: Ultra slavery men on that side of the House, and ultra anti-slavery men on this side, got together […]. How they got together, I did not then, nor do I now, understand. Perhaps, before this session of Congress expires, they may get together again. Stranger things than that have happened, and we all know that “politics make strange bedfellows.”
The Congressional Globe: New Series: Containing Sketches of the Debates and Proceedings of The Second Session. The Thirtieth Congress. Washington, D.C.: Blair & Ribes, 1849, 187 (Appendix).

31One year later, the following reference adds “misery” to “politics”, most likely recalling Shakespeare’s statement that had been reduced to the shorter proverb that “Misery makes strange bedfellows” by that time:

1850: Upon that point the honorable gentleman thought proper to be quite facetious, and observed, with an originality quite imposing, that politics, like misery, sometimes makes strange bedfellows. I thank the gentleman for the hint, and will beg leave to suggest to him that I fear that this fine saying of his will presently become more applicable to others than to myself, when they shall be found cooperating with Abolitionists and Free-Soilers in their efforts to defeat this bill.
Appendix to The Congressional Globe, for the First Session, Thirty-First Congress: Containing Speeches and Important Papers. Washington, D.C.: John C. Rives, 1850, 590.

32“This fine saying” did indeed begin to conquer its verbal market in its short and precise formulation, as can be seen from the following historical excerpts of various printed texts. There is no doubt that it has become a truly popular proverb that appears with considerable frequency wherever English is spoken and written:

1871: I may mention here, since we are on politics, that the Doolittle raspberries had sprawled all over the strawberry-beds: so true is it that politics makes strange bed-fellows.
Charles Dudley Warner, My Summer in a Garden. Boston: James R. Osgood, 1871, 130.

1874: Mr. Jefferson did not respond favorably to Colonel Burr’s request to be appointed to one of the great offices in the president’s gift. Politics make strange bedfellows. Without liking or ever implicitly trusting Colonel Burr, he had related to him for many years by party ties; and Burr had certainly contributed materially to the success of the Republican party in 1800.
James Parton, Life of Thomas Jefferson. Boston: James & Osgood, 1874, 663.

1889: Prof. Lupton, of Vanderbilt University, in coming over the mountains, spread his blankets upon the ground, as is customary, for the night, but when removing them next morning found a rattlesnake during the night had crawled in and warmly ensconced himself from the chilly mountain air. It is said politics make strange bedfellows; who knows but in this way his snakeship was testifying his approval of the learned professor’s views upon our home of foreign policy?
J.R. Flippin, Sketches from the Mountains of Mexico. Cincinnati, Ohio: Standard Publishing Company, 1889, 11.

1890: Politics make strange bedfellows, but politics certainly can not have made Senator Quay a bedfellow of Senator Gorman. It would be a strange perversity of politics.
Public Opinion, 9, no. 21 (1890), 474.

1895: Down with this Jesus! They will join with any person or party to accomplish this! Here again was illustrated the common proverb that religion and politics make strange bedfellows.
The Lutheran Commentary. A Plain Exposition of the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament, ed. Henry Eyster Jacobs. New York: The Christian Literature Co., 1895, 118. The coupling of religion and politics did not become proverbial!

1899: That the National Liberals were at this time intriguing with Augusta’s Tories and Ultramontanes to drive Bismarck from power is a statement that we cannot credit. Politics make strange bedfellows, but hardly so strange a fellowship as this.
Review of Books, 4, no. 3 (1899), 540.

33It is at the turn of the century that the verb form of “makes”, interpreting “politics” as a collective singular noun, becomes prevalent but not exclusively so. Occasionally “politics” is augmented with such terms as “misfortune” and “necessity” from other early variants. And such telling markers as “old adage”, “old saying”, “the rule”, “thus the adage maker hath spoken”, “an old saying”, “it is a truism”, “they say”, “the maxim”, “some people say”, and “the adage” clearly point to the fact that a traditional proverb is about to be cited that adds a certain authority to what is being claimed:

1900: Politics, like misfortune, makes strange bedfellows, and the scion of your Eastern banker may soon find himself detailed as the room-mate of the most impecunious and unpretentious of Uncle Sam’s younger sons.
George Gibbs, Pike & Cutless. Hero Tales of Our Navy. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1900, 234.

1909: But today things have changed; no word is said against him or his railroads. Besides this change of policy toward this individual and his business there has been a decided change of politics. It is another proof of the old adage “that politics makes strange bedfellows.”
James Edward Rogers, The American Newspaper. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1909, 200.

1911: It is an old saying that politics makes strange bedfellows, but politics is a back number in forcing strange conditions when secession takes the field.
The Electrical Worker, 11, no. 9 (May 1911), 228.

1911: Politics, indeed, make strange bed-fellows, and the strenuous [President Andrew] Jackson was not exempt from the application of the rule.
John Spencer Bassett, The Life of Andrew Jackson. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1911, 351.

1917: Politics makes strange bedfellows, even thus the adage maker hath spoken. But the question of woman suffrage has introduced into politics two fellows who refuse to lie down together: feeling and logic.
Judge (January 1917), 112.

1935 “Politics makes strange bedfellows” is an old saying. Every politician knows that new issues make new alignments – and new necessities make new alliances.
J.H. Wallis, The Politician. His Habits, Outcries and Protective Coloring. New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1935, 223.

34This last reference is the perfect political definition of the meaning of “Politics makes strange bedfellows” in the ever-changing world of politics. The next paragraph from Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind [1936] appears to reduce the proverb to an overused cliché from a literary point of view. And yet, even Mitchell can’t stay away from the proverbial wisdom:

1936: “Yes, platitudinously but truly, politics make strange bedfellows. Neither Ashley nor I care much for each other as bedfellows but – Ashley never believed in the Klan because he’s against violence of any sort. And I never believed in it because it’s damned foolishness and not the way to get what we want. It’s the one way to keep the Yankees on our necks till Kingdom Come. And between Ashley and me, we convinced the hot heads that watching, waiting and working would get us further than nightshirts and fiery crosses.”
Margaret Mitchell, Gone With the Wind. Anniversary Edition. New York: Macmillan, 1975, 898 (chapter 58).

1937: There we all were, Jews, Catholics and Mormons, agnostics and members of various Protestant denominations, going through a formalistic service. I kept wondering what was passing in the minds of some of those present. Politics may make strange bedfellows, but this event proved that it also makes strange co-worshipers.
The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes, ed. Mrs. Harold L. Ickes. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1937, II, 51.

1940: It is a truism that politics make strange bedfellows. Congress and the president must try to live together though their political bases and even their habits of thought are different.
Pendleton Herring, The Politics of Democracy. American Parties in Action. New York: W.W. Norton, 1940, 217.

1954: Politics makes strange bedfellows, yet it must have been an ample bed that could sleep the spokesman of an agrarian economy and the spokesman of capitalism side by side.
Vernon Louis Parrington, The Romantic Revolution in America, 1800-1860. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1954, 90.

35This last text takes the metaphor of the bedfellows to opposite representatives literally lying side by side in a bed together, adding a bit of grotesque humor to it all. And this next reference not only cites the proverb but also alludes to the variant “Necessity makes strange bedfellows” discussed above:

1956: They say politics makes strange bedfellows. Necessity makes stranger ones, maybe, but for the first time in the history of this business, the two national theater organizations have got together on common ground.
Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Select Committee on Small Business. United States Senate, Eighty-Fourth Congress, Second Session on Problems of Independent Motion-Picture Exhibitors. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1956, 18.

1966: If politics makes strange bedfellows, then international politics makes the strangest.
Thomas J. Christensen, Useful Adversaries. Grand Strategy, Domestic Mobilization, and Sino-American Conflict, 1947-1958. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1966, 3.

1966: If the alliance of Russians and reformers was a strange one, so was that between radical reformers and the ulamā. Indeed, perhaps nowhere does the maxim that politics makes strange bedfellows find better illustration than in Persia from 1890 through 1911.
Nikki R. Keddie, Religion and Rebellion in Iran. The Tobacco Protest of 1891-1892. New York: Frank Cass, 1966, 15.

1967: Politics, reputed to make strange bedfellows, was to vindicate its reputation in the year 1797. In retrospect the stormy career of [George] Washington as a soldier and statesman was a time of peace and goodwill in comparison. As commander-in-chief he had chosen his own bedfellows; Congress, at any rate, was too weak to hamper him with anything more than inaction. As President he was still the master, choosing his own aides and keeping them until they had almost mutually extinguished each other, while Congress, no longer inactive, stoutly supported him in all his demands.
Jacob Axelrad, Philip Freneau. Champion of Democracy. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1867, 286.

1977: For, if anything, Troy represented the earthy patriotism of New York’s hard-hat voters, a fact which, according to Mankiewicz, “made him a special hero to us.” Politics do indeed make strange bedfellows.
Victor Lasky, It Didn’t Start with Watergate. New York: Dial Press,1977, 298.

36The next excerpt stems from remarks that President Ronald Reagan made at a fundraising dinner for Senatorial candidate George Voinovich in Cincinnati, Ohio. It shows the President having some fun with the proverb with the audience loving his quips:

1988: George [Voinovich] and I have spent most of the day together, and I guess his lovely wife, Janet, is probably a little anxious that he was getting home. You know, some people say that politics makes strange bedfellows. I’m going to let you in on a little secret: Sometimes politics doesn’t make bedfellows at all. [Laughter] And sometimes it separates people that have been bedfellows for a while. [Laughter] I’d love to stay in Cincinnati a little longer – everybody knows this is one of my favorite States – but frankly, I have to say I’m a little anxious to get back to Nancy myself. [Laughter]
Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. Ronald Reagan. 1988-89. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printed Office, 1991, II, 1355.

1989: Ten years ago I was advocating bringing [Jacques] Lacan and feminism together. The phrase ‘strange bedfellows’ popped into my mind as a critique of this idea that you could put Lacan and feminism together. The phrase comes from the cliché ‘politics makes strange bedfellows’. Feminism is, of course, a political movement and a way of thinking. Although the cliché is explicitly about politics, it sounds like it is about sex, about people sleeping together. If you put sex and politics together and start talking about the politics of sex, you are talking feminism. We all know the phrase ‘sexual politics’ as the name of an early book of feminist literary criticism. I guess ‘strange bedfellows’ came to me as some sort of joke feminist question about the politics of coupling Lacan and feminism.
Jane Gallop, “Moving Backwards or Forwards.” Between Feminism and Psychoanalysis, ed. Teresa Brennan. London: Routledge, 1989, 23-39 (here 27).

2001: Why Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows.
J.P. Caulkins, R.F Hartl, G. Tragler, and G. Feichtinger, “Why Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows: Dynamic Model with DNS Curves.” Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications 111 (2001), 237-254. This is not an analysis of the proverb per se but rather a complex mathematical analysis of political behavior.

2001: I returned his stare, as blandly as I knew how. He wasn’t the kind you could get to know in an hour, or a year. I doubted that a man as jumpily brilliant as Westmore would have his well-manicured fingers in a courthouse pie. But politics made stranger bedfellows than sex.
Ross Macdonald, Find a Victim. New York: Vintage Crime, 2001, 157.

2010: A mix of liberals and conservatives coming together momentarily in a legislative episode that proves once and for all that “politics makes strange bedfellows.”
Robert B. Hudson, ed. The Politics of Old Age Policy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010, xi.

2011: Politics makes strange bedfellows: Why political and industrial diversity helps contract lobby organizations retain clients and make money.
Sasha Goodman, Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows: Why Political and Industrial Diversity Helps Contract Lobby Organizations Retain Clients and Make Money. Palo Alta: Stanford University Press, 2011 (book title).

2018: The adage that politics makes strange bedfellows is no better illustrated than in the expedient cross-ethnic coalitions that emerge even in intense, long-lasting, and violent conflicts. What may prove to be a marriage of convenience between ancient enemies, the ANC and the NP, has been activated in large measure by their common interest in outmaneuvering foes within their respective ethnic communities. Politics do not stop at the water’s edge of ethnic communities.
Milton J. Esman, Ethnic Politics. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2018, 226.

10. Excursus: Anti-proverbs and allusions

37Considering the popularity of the proverb “Politics makes strange bedfellows”, it should not be surprising that a fair amount of anti-proverbs have appeared based on it. After all, frequently heard or written short formulaic statements have a tendency to be parodied or otherwise innovatively manipulated with the underlying text in the background. Of course, the following one-liners based on the “politics” proverb are nothing but more or less humorous one-liners that have not developed into new proverbs with a general currency. They simply replace “politics” with any noun following the structure of “X makes strange bedfellows”:

Alcohol makes strange bedfellows. (2004)
Divorce makes strange bedfellows (1997)
Marriage makes strange bedfellows (1997)
Litovkina & Mieder [2006: 260].

38Here is another group of such playful anti-proverbs, this time maintaining the noun “proverb” and the verb “makes” but changing its conclusion, thus following the structure “Politics makes X”:

Politics makes estranged bedfellows. (1967)
Politics makes strange bad fellows. (1968)
Litovkina & Mieder [2006: 260].

39And there are also texts that expand the basic proverb by a short comment that juxtaposes its wisdom with a new thought:

Politics makes strange bedfellows, and so does prostitution. (1968)
Politics makes strange bedfellows, but they are always willing to lie on their own side. (1968)

Politics makes strange bedfellows – rich. (1968)
Litovkina & Mieder [2006: 260-261].

40There are many more examples of such paremiological play to be found in collections of quips and jokes. (Litovkina [2013: 98-99], Litovkina [2016: 141-143]). But here are a few additional examples that appeared in prose texts, showing that authors are quick to manipulate the proverb into an innovative anti-proverb befitting a particular context:

1941: He had no grudge against Goebel; indeed he had supported him in the election six months before. Still, politics makes estranged bedfellows.
Irvin S. Cobb, Exit Laughing. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1941, 217.

1957: Ironically, some of the genuine ex-royalties were on excellent terms with “phony” royalties, proving that expedience makes strange bedfellows. The “phonies,” most of whom had rich wives in the background, frequently looked the part far more convincingly than the real thing.
Robert Standish, The Prince of Storytellers. The Life of E. Phillips Oppenheim. London: Peter Davies, 1957, 92-93.

1959. “But I still think it’s perverse of the expensive Melissa to be holidaying with a string bag like Ianthe.” “Perversity makes strange bedfellows.”
Nicholas Blake, The Widow’s Cruise. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1959, 9.

1969: Even in our increasingly permissive community there remain generally accepted standards of masculinity and femininity, and society is organized to reinforce them. ‘Perversity makes strange bedfellows.’
David Charles, Sex on Campus. Amsterdam: Excerpta Medica Foundation, 1969, ix.

41The anti-proverb “Perversity makes strange bedfellows” of the two texts just cited from more than half a century ago has not caught on thus far, and it is highly doubtful that it will ever reach the status of a new independent proverb (Valdaeva [2003]). But how about the reversed variant “Bedfellows make strange politics” of the following four textual references?

1942: Bedfellows make strange politics. All these groups were agreed upon the symbols with which the muddled public could best be befuddled.
Frederick Lewis Schuman, Design for Power. The Struggle for the World. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1942, 279.

1985: Bedfellows Make Strange Politics.
Sharon Tyler. “Bedfellows Make Strange Politics. Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II.” Drama, Sex, and Politics, ed. James Redmond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, 55-48 (title).

1993: This was the moment when bedfellows made the usual strange politics, lived to tattle the tale and won America. The first modern American political survivor [Bill Clinton] of a full-blown adultery scandal is about to lead us into temptation.
The New York Times Magazine, 1993, 279.

1994: Bedfellows Make Strange Politics.
The New York Times Book Review (September 18, 1994), 24 (headline)

42Indeed, these are four occurrences, but they do not permit the claim that “Bedfellows make strange politics” is a new proverb. The last text from the New York Times might have borrowed from the preceding one out of the same newspaper, but all in all these admittedly ingenious reversals of the proverb probably originated totally independent of each other. Such play with a well-known traditional proverb does not justify the conclusion of a diachronic development. In other words, this is not a case of monogenesis but rather an example of polygenesis (Dundes [2000: 298], Chesnutt [2007], Mieder [2013]).

43Finally, then, there is no reason why the well-established proverb “Politics makes strange bedfellows” should not be reduced to mere allusions. And yet, most listeners or readers will be aware of the underlying proverb due to its general knowledge and acceptance. The first reference is from one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s memorable “Fireside Chats” of March 9, 1937, in which he discussed his Plan for the Reorganization of the Judiciary:

1937: We cannot rely on an amendment as the immediate or only answer to our present difficulties. When the time comes for action, you will find that many of those who pretend to support you will sabotage any constructive amendment which is proposed. Look at these strange bed-fellows of yours. When before have you found them really at your side in your fight for progress?
The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Volume 6: The Constitution Prevails. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1941, 132.

1939: Foraker, the corruptionist, had allied himself in the presidential free-for-all with [Theodore] Roosevelt, the reformer. Into such incongruous bedfellowship do the exigencies of politics lure sheep and goats.
Samuel Hopkins Adams, Incredible Era. The Life and Times of Warren Gamaliel Harding. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1939, 57.

1948: I know there are many fine people in this country who are accustomed to voting the Republican ticket. But they should consider well the strange bedfellows the Republican Party has this year.
Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. Harry S. Truman. January 1 to December 31, 1948. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1964, 860. Mieder and Bryan 1997: 189.

1950: What they say about politics and bedfellows is true enough, but the strangeness of these combinations is as nothing compared with the strangeness of the heads that find themselves on the same pillow.
Matthew Head, The Congo Venus. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1950, 49.

1973: Washington will ever be a city for extracurricular romance and undercover trysts, partly because of the high moral standards demanded of the politician by his constituency, and also because it is a town where women are more easily tolerated if they dabble with politicians rather than politics. There will be strange bedfellows in government as long as the double standard exists, as long as divorce is unacceptable in the high levels of politics, as long as the bed is the natural forum for women with political lusts.
Barbara Howar, Laughing All the Way. Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications, 1973, 99.

1977: “This might seem to the old power blocs like an odd collection of “strange bedfellows,” Mr. Nixon said, but “they all were unhappy about something, all protesting against centralized government and calling for greater individual freedom.”
William Edward Leuchtenburg and Gene Brown, Political Parties. New York: New York Times, 1977, 300.

2011: Well, on that day, I introduced legislation to make that information public, working with a number of Members of the House and the Senate. Some strange bedfellows – conservatives and progressives – came together on this issue.
Bernie Sanders, The Speech. On Corporate Greed and the Decline of Our Middle Class. New York: Nation Books, 2015, 29 (first ed. 2011). Mieder 2019: 256.

2012: Politics & Bedfellows.
Norman Weinstein, Politics & Bedfellows. A Marital Romp in Two Acts. Bloomington, Indiana: Booktango, 2012 (title)

44As expressed in some references throughout this discussion as well as with this last text, the word “bedfellows” calls forth an associated or at least imagined connection between politics and sex. And why not add alcohol to it as well, as seen in this last play on the ever-present proverb:

1970: The point about the twenties wasn’t simply how much you drank, but what you drank, and where you drank it, and whom you drank it with. Prohibition made strange barfellows, and bedfellows stranger still.
Louis Kronenberger, No Whippings, No Gold Watches. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1970, 31.

45One thing is for certain, the great William Shakespeare started it all in 1611 with his “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.” Starting as a literary quotation that continues to be recited in stage productions of his romance The Tempest, it reached somewhat of a proverbial status over time but certainly never became a proverb among the general folk. That was left to its shortened rephrasing “Misery makes strange bedfellows” and its variants “Misfortune makes strange bedfellows”, “Necessity makes strange bedfellows”, “Adversity makes strange bedfellows”, “Poverty makes strange bedfellows”, and the somewhat newer “Business makes strange bedfellows.” They all have become proverbs in their own right and have been registered as such in scholarly proverb collections. And yet, “Politics makes strange bedfellows” wins the prize as far as steady currency and frequency since the late eighteenth century is concerned. Perhaps a few more new proverbs might develop based on the structure “X makes strange bedfellows”, but it is unimaginable and doubtful that any new variant would push aside the well-established proverbial champion!