SINGLE WOMAN-NEVERMARRIED-NO CHILDREN
otherwise known as The Spinster
This is a topic that I think is rarely talked about but then again I could be very wrong. I am a swnmnc. I think about 98% of my friends feel very uncomfortable with this status that I carry. I believe they pity me. Most of the time they say " I just don't understand why you have NEVER been married?"
That statement is always a reminder that I am different from them; it makes me feel as though I am in a much much much much much lower class of womanhood. They do not mean any harm but they cannot relate one iota to how it feels to be different from the majority of women on the globe.
I think the biggest and most painful statement is when a single man says " so what's wrong with you? You mean NOBODY wanted you. NOBODY at all EVER wanted to marry you. NO children? So really, what's wrong with you? There must be some reason why nobody wanted you."
Almost 100% of single men that I meet ask me this question and almost verbatim for all of them. Rude? Yes. Insensitive? Yes, but most people women included ask me the same question or want to.
Well for all who may want to know the answer, here it goes.
" I do not know why. I have asked God a gazillion times and never have received the answer. It just is what it is."
Anyway, lets take a look at what the internet says.
n. 1. A woman who has remained single beyond the conventional age for marrying.
2. A single woman.
3. A person whose occupation is spinning.
We even have a game named after us.
A
spinster, or old maid, is an older, childless woman who has never been married.
For a woman to be identified as a spinster, age is critical. A "spinster" is not simply a "single" woman, but a woman who has not formed a human
pair bond (i.e., a bond that leads to childbirth) by the time she is approaching or has reached
menopause and the end of her reproductive lifespan.
[1]
"If someone is a spinster, by implication she is not eligible (to marry); she has had her chance, and been passed by," explains
Robin Lakoff in
Language and Woman's Place. "Hence, a girl of twenty cannot be properly called a spinster: she still has a chance to be married."
[2]
Modern American culture has raised generations of women who believed that their true and most important role in society was to get married and have children. Anything short of this role was considered abnormal, unfulfilling, and suspect.
The Spinster Stereotype
The word spinster came into common use during the early 19th century when the thankless task of spinning cloth had been pushed off to unmarried women as a way to earn their keep in the home (O’Brien, 1973). Contemporary use of the word conjures up a mental image of a childless, frumpy, middle-aged woman who is somewhat depressed, and is longing to be like other “normal” women. She is usually alone, or living with an extended family.
She is considered a societal outcast living in the shadow of others. She makes those around her uncomfortable.
So be honest. How do you feel about Spinsters? How do you treat them? Are they freaks of nature? Do you pity them? Are they the scumb of the earth, the ones no man ever wanted, the bottom feeders of society?
Let me know your opinions.
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