Photo: Karen Penroz/Unsplash
I once took my daughter and nieces to the Uniacke Estate Museum about an hour outside of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The museum once served as the country home of Richard Uniacke, who was Nova Scotia’s attorney general in the late 18th century.
We got a tour from one of the museum guides, who told stories about the artefacts in the display cases in the museum, including one dress that belonged to Uniacke’s sister. That sister never married. “She was what people called a spinster,” the guide told my daughter and nieces, who were about 11 and 12 at the time.
On the drive home, my older niece said, “Suzanne, did you know you’re a spinster because you don’t have a husband?”
I took no offence, and it was quite funny.
According to Merriam Webster Dictionary, the term spinster means “single woman who is old enough to be married but isn't—and isn't likely to get married… The word has an old-fashioned and dated feel to it, and because of that it can carry a whiff of impoliteness in certain circumstances.”
I laughed at the dictionary’s “spoiler: patriarchy” just below the word spinster before they go on to explain the meaning of the word. So, what does it mean? Well, spinster comes from what jobs women could do. That is, spin yarn.
The word spinster became part of the English language in the 1300s. In legal documents, people’s occupations were often included, so spinster was assigned to women who spun yarn to earn an income.
So, how did the term spinster come to be associated with single women? From Merriam Webster, again:
“The jump from spinner to single lady is likely an economic one. Some scholars suggest that during the late Middle Ages, married tradeswomen had greater access to raw materials and the market (through their husbands) than unmarried woman did, and therefore unmarried women ended up with lower-status, lower-income jobs like combing, carding, and spinning wool. These jobs didn't require access to expensive tools like looms, and could be done at home. By the 17th century, spinster was being used in legal documents to refer to unmarried women.”
Of course, there are many famous spinsters throughout history. Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen, Jane Austen, Greta Garbo, Florence Nightingale, Joan of Arc.
I don’t know much about the story of Richard Uniacke’s spinster sister, but I suspect it was more interesting than what the museum offers in its displays.
When Uniacke was 22, he married Martha Maria Delesderneir, the 12-year-old daughter of his employer, Moses Delesderneir. They had 11 children before she died at the age of 40.
That’s a story for another blog.