Cecily: Approaching quarterlife, I’m examining impending spinsterhood. Whoever wrote this Wikipedia entry deserves some kind of prize, for directness, incidental humour, and ability to plunge me into deep distress:

‘Spinster: “Old maid” redirects here. For other uses, see Old Maid (disambiguation).’

‘The Oxford American English Dictionary defines spinster as “an unmarried woman, typically an older woman beyond the usual age for marriage”. It adds: “In modern everyday English, however, spinster cannot be used to mean simply ‘unmarried woman’; as such, it is a derogatory term, referring or alluding to a stereotype of an older woman who is unmarried, childless, prissy, and repressed.’

‘In Australia, parties are held for young single people to meet and socialize (particularly in the rural areas). These events are known as Bachelor and Spinster Balls or colloquially “B and S Balls”. There is also a philanthropic group of women between the ages of 21 and 35 called the Spinsters of San Francisco who organize events.’

‘The documentary Cat Ladies (2009) spins a tale of four spinsters whose lives have become dedicated to their cats.’

‘Tina Fey’s portrayal of her character Liz Lemon, on the hit NBC series 30 Rock exemplifies another classic spinster stereotype. Lemon, a 40-something single woman whose relationships never seem to work out, has unrealistically high expectations of what she is looking for in a man: her dream husband is the archetypal “Astronaut Mike Dexter”, and for much of the series her character is holding out on settling on a man until she can score an astronaut.’

‘In modern peacetime societies with wide opportunities for romance, marriage and children, there are other reasons that available women remain single as they approach old age. Psychologist Erik Erikson postulated that during young adulthood (ages 18 to 39), individuals experience an inner conflict between a desire for intimacy (i.e., a committed relationship leading to marriage) and a desire for isolation (i.e., fear of commitment). Other reasons women may choose not to marry include a focus on her career, a desire for an independent life, economic considerations, or an unwillingness to make the compromises expected in a marriage.’

‘The Online Etymological Dictionary says of the word origin and history:

spinster: mid-14c., “female spinner of thread,” from M.E. spinnen (see spin) + -stere, feminine suffix. Spinning was commonly done by unmarried women, hence the word came to denote “an unmarried woman” in legal documents from 1600s to early 1900s, and by 1719 was being used generically for “woman still unmarried and beyond the usual age for it.”‘

‘Some notable women who never married include:

Oprah Winfrey, media titan
Louisa May Alcott, writer
Jane Austen, writer
Emily Dickinson, writer
Greta Garbo, actress
Lilian Gish, actress
Elizabeth I of England, Queen of England
Dianne Keaton, actress
Lucy Liu, actress
Florence Nightengale, nurse
Condolezza Rice, U.S. Secretary of State
Mother Teresa, Roman Catholic missionary’

More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinster. Sigh.