Blessed or Not? The New Spinster in England and the United States in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

Bibliographic Data

ID6079702
AuthorsRuth Freeman (0000-0002-8733-1253, University of Rochester), Patricia Klaus (University of Virginia and Stanford University)
Year1984
Volume9
Issue4
Pages394-414
Publication date1984-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Family History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0363-1990 • E-ISSN: 1552-5473
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/036319908400900406
OpenAlexW1984895391
LanguageEN
Citations received15
References cited26

After 1870, single women in England and America began to speak favorably about spinsterhood. With new acceptable means to earn money and with a growing openness about the fragility of happiness in marriage, employed or financially independent middle-class women no longer regarded marriage as necessary for financial support or self-respect. In magazine articles, single women compared their lives to those of their married friends and told readers that spinsterhood, with its financial and intellectual independence, could be a rational choice. Though social commentators worried and warned of loneliness, these bachelor women enjoyed the amenities and companionship afforded by an urban setting. Novelists distrusted the spinsters' advocacy of single-blessedness as stories ended with the new female protagonists marrying. A minority that some times wavered, the new spinsters, by demonstrating a respectable option, helped to reverse traditional scorn for old maids and to pave the way for those who would later demand, like men, to combine work and marriage

Estate · Happiness · Interpersonal relationship · Loneliness · Middle class · Openness to experience · Political science · Sociology · Gender Studies · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology

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