In 1667, the poet Katherine Phillips penned a work which warned women of the onerous duties which came with marriage. Her celebration of spinsterhood was very different from the attitude of most of her contemporaries to a woman's unmarried state.
From the 17th century, the word 'spinster' had become the legal term used to describe a single woman. It wasn't long before it had acquired its derogatory connotations. Even today, the Oxford English Dictionary still defines a spinster as "an old maid".
Jennifer Chevalier reports on the condition that gentlewomen feared the most - especially one Lady Mary Wortley Montague.
Women Alone: Spinsters in England 1669-1850 by Bridget Hill, published by Yale University Press, ISBN 0 300 08820 5
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