A dear, old friend points out that I have a birthday coming up, and that at some point in the next year, we will have known each other for two decades. This fact is both shocking and uncomfortable, and he apologises for bringing it to my attention. I reassure him, ‘One cannot escape time – I need to face up to the fact I’m turning into an old spinster.’ In response, he sends me this.'My dictionary says:
"In modern everyday English, however, spinster cannot be used to mean simply ‘unmarried woman’; it is now always a derogatory term, referring or alluding to a stereotype of an older woman who is unmarried, childless, prissy, and repressed."
You are so far away from being prissy and repressed my dear, the definition can't possibly apply.'
5 comments:
Yes, it is a derogatory term and so unbefitting of you.
There are so many single girls out there making it on their own, are intelligent and earning their own money and that for some reason makes them less attractive.
My theory is that most men want a woman whose wits are far less threatening when they struggle to exist. That is not to say that they are not fooled by women with wits who are splendid actresses posing as helpless wits.
I have had friends whose only goal was to get married, even if they begrudginly went on to post secondary education, including community college. They got married, what they wanted, and now are either divorced or suffering in the knowlege that they can't leave the bed they created for they can't financially support themselves or their children without a man. Unless they married well, and that is all resolved by a good purse snatched in divorce.
It is pretty sad and telling. Makes being single so much more attractive.
Much better to be alone, than with the wrong person, and some times it's just better to be alone.
Agreed. I wonder how many of the marrieds out there are truly blissful, and how many are in compromise / convenience marriages? This is what I tell myself to cheer myself up anyhow!
You defy labels. Period.
August
I find spinsters quite alluring, widows too.
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