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Spinster
''Spinster'' is a term referring to an unmarried woman who is older than what is perceived as the prime age range during which women usually marry. It can also indicate that a woman is considered unlikely to ever marry. The term originally denoted a woman whose occupation was to spin. A synonymous term is old maid. The closest equivalent term for males is "bachelor" or "confirmed bachelor", but this generally does not carry the same connotations in reference to age and perceived desirability in marriage. Etymology and history Long before the Industrial Age, "the art & calling of being a spinster" denoted girls and women who spun wool. According to the ''Online Etymological Dictionary'', spinning was "commonly done by unmarried women, hence the word came to denote" an unmarried woman in legal documents from the 1600s to the early 1900s, and "by 1719 was being used generically for 'woman still unmarried and beyond the usual age for it'". As a denotation for unmarried women i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Single (relationship)
In legal definitions for interpersonal status, a single person refers to a person who is not in committed relationships, or is not part of a civil union. In common usage, the term 'single' is often used to refer to someone who is not involved in any type of romantic relationship, including long-term dating, engagement, marriage, or someone who is 'single by choice'. Single people may participate in dating and other activities to find a long-term partner or spouse. Reasons people remain single People may remain single for a variety of reasons, including (but not limited to): * Financial duress * Their mental health * Pursuing educational or professional advancement * Lack of suitable partners * Changes in perceptions of the necessity of marriage * In some cases, single people may be uninterested in marriage, domestic partnership, or other types of committed relationships. * Traumatic experiences including domestic violence, dysfunctional family, rape and/or sexual assault * Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shengnu
''Sheng nu'' (; common translation: "leftover women" or "leftover ladies") is a derogatory term popularized by the All-China Women's Federation that classifies women who remain unmarried in their late twenties and beyond. Most prominently used in China, the term has also been used colloquially to refer to women in India, North America, and other parts of Asia. �English/ref> The term compares unmarried women to leftover food and has gone on to become widely used in the mainstream media and has been the subject of several television series, magazine and newspaper articles, and book publications, focusing on the negative connotations and positive reclamation of the term. While initially backed and disseminated by pro-government media in 2007, the term eventually came under criticism from government-published newspapers two years later. Xu Xiaomin of ''The China Daily'' described the sheng nus as "a social force to be reckoned with" and others have argued the term should be taken a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bachelor
A bachelor is a man who is not and has never been married.Bachelors are, in Pitt & al.'s phrasing, "men who live independently, outside of their parents' home and other institutional settings, who are neither married nor cohabitating". (). Etymology A bachelor is first attested as the 12th-century ''bacheler'': a knight bachelor, a knight too young or poor to gather vassals under his own banner. The Old French ' presumably derives from Provençal ' and Italian ', but the ultimate source of the word is uncertain.''Oxford English Dictionary'', 1st ed.bachelor, ''n.'' Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1885. The proposed Medieval Latin * ("vassal", "field hand") is only attested late enough that it may have derived from the vernacular languages, rather than from the southern French and northern Spanish Latin . Alternatively, it has been derived from Latin ' ("a stick"), in reference to the wooden sticks used by knights in training. History From the 14th century, the term "bachelo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bachelorette
''Bachelorette'' (/ˌbætʃələˈrɛt/) is a term used in American English for a single, unmarried woman. The term is derived from the word '' bachelor'', and is often used by journalists, editors of popular magazines, and some individuals. "Bachelorette" was famously the term used to refer to female contestants on the old '' The Dating Game'' TV show and, more recently, '' The Bachelorette''. In older English, the female counterpart term to "bachelor" was " spinster". However, this has acquired negative connotations and, when used now, tends to imply that the unmarried woman is too old to find a husband and have children. A bachelorette may have previously been in a relationship. In Canada, the term ''bachelorette'' also refers to a small bachelor apartment (an apartment with only one large room serving as a bedroom and living room plus a separate bathroom—i.e. a studio apartment). Derivation The more proper neologism would be ''bacheloress'', since the ''-ess'' suff ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott (; November 29, 1832March 6, 1888) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet best known as the author of the novel ''Little Women'' (1868) and its sequels ''Little Men'' (1871) and '' Jo's Boys'' (1886). Raised in New England by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May and Amos Bronson Alcott, she grew up among many well-known intellectuals of the day, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Alcott's family suffered from financial difficulties, and while she worked to help support the family from an early age, she also sought an outlet in writing. She began to receive critical success for her writing in the 1860s. Early in her career, she sometimes used pen names such as A. M. Barnard, under which she wrote lurid short stories and sensation novels for adults that focused on passion and revenge. Published in 1868, ''Little Women'' is set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sheila Jeffreys
Sheila Jeffreys (born 13 May 1948) is a former professor of political science at the University of Melbourne, born in England. A lesbian feminist scholar, she analyses the history and politics of human sexuality. Jeffreys' argument that the "sexual revolution" on men's terms contributed less to women's freedom than to their continued oppression has both commanded respect and attracted intense criticism. She argues that women suffering pain in pursuit of beauty is a form of submission to patriarchal sadism, that transgender people reproduce oppressive gender roles and mutilate their bodies through sex reassignment surgery, and that lesbian culture has been negatively affected by emulating the sexist influence of the gay male subculture of dominant/submissive sexuality. She is the author of several books about feminism and feminist history, including ''The Spinster and Her Enemies'' (1985), ''The Sexuality Debates'' (1987), ''Anticlimax'' (1990), ''Unpacking Queer Politics'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kate Bolick
Kate Bolick (born 1972) is the author of New York Times bestseller ''Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own''. She is also a contributing editor for ''The Atlantic,'' and host of "Touchstones at The Mount," an annual literary interview series at Edith Wharton’s country estate in the Berkshires. Bollick attended Colby College and New York University. Career Kate Bolick is most well known as the author of New York Times bestseller ''Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own''. In addition to her work with ''The Atlantic'', Bolick contributes writing to ''Elle'', ''Cosmopolitan'', ''Vogue'', ''The New York Times'', and ''The Wall Street Journal'', among other publications. Previously, Bolick was the executive editor of ''Domino'', as well as a columnist for ''The Boston Globe's'' Ideas Section. Bolick's appearances include ''The Today Show'', CBS Sunday Morning, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and NPR programs around the country. ''Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own'' In her 2015 New Y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hand Spinning
Spinning is an ancient textile art in which plant, animal or synthetic fibres are drawn out and twisted together to form yarn. For thousands of years, fibre was spun by hand using simple tools, the spindle and distaff. It was only with the invention of the spinning wheel in the Islamic world circa 1030, and its subsequent introduction to China, India and Europe in the High Middle Ages, that the output of individual spinners dramatically increased. Mass production later arose in the 18th century with the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution. Hand-spinning remains a popular handicraft. Characteristics of spun yarn vary according to the material used, fibre length and alignment, quantity of fibre used, and degree of twist. History The origins of spinning fibre to make string or yarn are lost in time, but archaeological evidence in the form of representation of string skirts has been dated to the Upper Paleolithic era some 20,000 years ago. There has also been recent disc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Banns Of Marriage
The banns of marriage, commonly known simply as the "banns" or "bans" (from a Middle English word meaning "proclamation", rooted in Frankish and thence in Old French), are the public announcement in a Christian parish church, or in the town council, of an impending marriage between two specified persons. It is commonly associated with the Catholic Church, the Church of Sweden (Lutheran), the Church of England (Anglican), and with other Christian denominations whose traditions are similar. In 1983, the Catholic Church removed the requirement for banns and left it to individual national bishops' conferences to decide whether to continue the practice, but in most Catholic countries the banns are still published. The purpose of banns is to enable anyone to raise any canonical or civil legal impediments to the marriage, so as to prevent marriages that are invalid. Impediments vary between legal jurisdictions, but would normally include a pre-existing marriage that has been ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coverture
Coverture (sometimes spelled couverture) was a legal doctrine in the English common law in which a married woman's legal existence was considered to be merged with that of her husband, so that she had no independent legal existence of her own. Upon marriage, coverture provided that a woman became a , whose legal rights and obligations were mostly subsumed by those of her husband. An unmarried woman, or , had the right to own property and make contracts in her own name. Coverture was well established in the common law for several centuries and was inherited by many other common law jurisdictions, including the United States. According to historian Arianne Chernock, coverture did not apply in Scotland, but whether it applied in Wales is unclear. After the rise of the women's rights movement in the mid-19th century, coverture was increasingly criticised as oppressive, hindering women from exercising ordinary property rights and entering professions. Coverture was first substanti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Language
German ( ) is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol. It is also a co-official language of Luxembourg and Belgium, as well as a national language in Namibia. Outside Germany, it is also spoken by German communities in France (Bas-Rhin), Czech Republic (North Bohemia), Poland (Upper Silesia), Slovakia (Bratislava Region), and Hungary (Sopron). German is most similar to other languages within the West Germanic language branch, including Afrikaans, Dutch, English, the Frisian languages, Low German, Luxembourgish, Scots, and Yiddish. It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to some languages in the North Germanic group, such as Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish. German is the second most widely spoken Germanic language after English, which is also a West Germanic language. German is one of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italian Language
Italian (''italiano'' or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. Together with Sardinian, Italian is the least divergent language from Latin. Spoken by about 85 million people (2022), Italian is an official language in Italy, Switzerland ( Ticino and the Grisons), San Marino, and Vatican City. It has an official minority status in western Istria ( Croatia and Slovenia). Italian is also spoken by large immigrant and expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia.Ethnologue report for language code:ita (Italy) – Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Online version [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
