Cherchez la femme! is a French phrase which literally means "Look for the woman!"
The expression comes from Alexandre Dumas (père) in The Mohicans of Paris (1854). It is a cliché of detective pulp fiction; when someone's wife has been murdered, when a man has a problem or is involved in a quarrel, one should search for a woman as the root cause of the trouble. Alexandre Dumas, père. ... 1854 (MDCCCLIV) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...
The phrase has also come to mean, simply, "Look for the root cause of the problem!"
O. Henry's story Cherchez La Femme, includes the following line; the character Dumars in the story is presumably a reference to Dumas: William Sydney Porter in his thirties O. Henry was the pen name of American writer William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862–June 5, 1910), whose clever use of twist endings in his stories popularized the term O. Henry Ending. His middle name at birth was Sidney, not Sydney; he later... Alexandre Dumas, père. ...
"Ah! yes, I know most time when those men lose money you say, 'Cherchez la femme'--there is somewhere the woman."
The television series La Femme Nikita features the following line in its opening credits: Nikita (re-titled La Femme Nikita in the United States and other international markets) is a television spy drama based upon the French film directed by Luc Besson (see Nikita). ...
"Cherchez la femme, cherchez la femme...dans la nuit, dans la nuit." (Literally: "Look for the woman, look for the woman...in the night, in the night.")
The 2005 song "Biggest Fan" by musician Brendan Benson contains the lyric "Cherchez la femme" repeated several times at the end.
James Ellroy's 'The Black Dahlia' has the following line "Cherchez La Femme, Bucky. Remember that" repeated throughout the book. Photo of James Ellroy by Robert Birnbaum James Ellroy (born Lee Earle Ellroy on March 4, 1948 in Los Angeles, California) is an American writer. ...
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Alexandre Dumas, père, born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (July 24, 1802 – December 5, 1870), is best known for his numerous historical novels of high adventure which have made him the most widely read French author in the world.
Many of his novels, including The Count of Monte Cristo and the D'Artagnan Romances, were serialized, and he also wrote plays, magazine articles, and was a prolific correspondent.
While his grandfather, Marquis Antoine-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie, served the government of France as Général commissaire in the Artillery in the colony of Saint Domingue (now Haiti), he married Marie-Césette Dumas, a fl slave.
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