Unrelated to 'Lovely Joan' (though Stephen Sedley -see ref above- managed to confuse the two quite spectacularly; his text is in the DT but shouldn't be mistaken for a traditional song) but yes, the general theme was a common one and a number of songs dealt with it in different ways. This one is more usually called 'The Crafty Maid's Policy': number 1624 in the Roud Folk Song Index.

Since this old thread has been revived, I may as well add that I think that the Traditional Ballad Index entry quoted above is one of their less glorious achievements. Perhaps it has been improved by now with reference to authentic texts; if "PJS" had done his homework, he would have known that "twenty husbands" was the old broadside form. Sharp used that, rather than Jim Proll's "twenty maidenheads", because he would never have got the thing published otherwise.

It's probably best to link to TBI files rather than copy-and-pasting them. That way, the information is updated when the files are, instead of outdated stuff being perpetuated here. We have enough of that in the DT, after all.