Is it bad to call yourself a Spinster? My roommates don't want to read my blog because they don't like the idea of calling oneself a spinster. If you call yourself such does that mean you've totally given up on the idea of ever getting married? If you call yourself a spinster does that mean you want to hole up in your apartment and become a bitter "old maid". (Just a sidenote, I find it interesting that we call those kernels of popcorn that never pop "old maids". What's the significance of that? Do people think that single women that never marry are useless, wasted things? Interesting...)
Why do I call myself a spinster? I thought about this for awhile the other day and I came to the realization that I call myself spinster because I want to be part of a group, I want to have a niche. I could just call myself single, but then that lumps me in with all people, male and female, ages 18-99, that have never been married or are divorced or widowed, etc. There's too many singles to really feel like your part of a group. (Another sidenote, why is it that people are called singles or married people? Why not marrieds or single people? Do we not get person status until we are married?). Ok so it's a much smaller group that are women ages 25/30 and up that have never been married. There is more solidarity with such a group, we can sympathize with and support one another in a society largely prejudiced towards us.
Also I want to take back the word spinster and make it my own, free it from the connotations it holds. I found an interesting article on the internet with this quote from Grumble Magazine (I can't vouch for this magazine because I don't know anything about it, but I liked this quote),
"Ladies, in the great tradition of under-served, marginalized and downtrodden people, we need to reclaim a certain word that defines and labels us as "less than". The word I am referring to is "Spinster". We have been called many things throughout the years: "Old Maids", "Career Girls", "Maiden Aunts", and most recently, and appallingly, "Sex & The City Girls". None of these terms encompass what we are, what we can be if we mobilize. If the gay population took back "faggot" and "queer", and the black population took back "nigga'", then why can't we take back "Spinster" and make it our own, define it our way? I say we can."
Anyway, it's just a thought. I think I have embraced my spinsterhood in a way some others haven't. I may marry one day or I may never marry, but I don't want to spend my life in a limbolike state being neither here nor there. For now I am a spinster and that is no bad thing. For now I will enjoy my life and live it on my terms, without feeling like I am less than I should be. Thank you.
4 comments:
Yay, you're writing again! I too think the word spinster has been given a bad rap, and us spinsters with it. I say, where's the shame? I would rather be known as spinster (in an empowering way) than to known as 'that woman' in the neighbourhood/family/ward that has too many marriages under her belt.
Thank you Anonymous. Hear, hear. I like your comments. Yes hopefully I write more regularly now, I guess I was having writers block or something. Thanks for reading and making comments.
Maybe people say "singles" more than "marrieds" because two alveolars in a row are too hard to say, while an [s] just rolls off the tongue after a liquid...:D
Thank you anonymous linguist! You may have solved the mystery. :)
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