SINGLE WOMEN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 38, 14 February 1931, Page 4 (Supplement)

SINGLE WOMEN.

NEW NAME WANTED.

SPINSTER OR SINGLETTE?

(By NELLE M. SCANLAN.)

The nam© spinster is definitely discredited. It conjures visions of narrow chaste, narrow minds, narrow lives. It has a vinegary taste. With the coming of modern freedom, the flapper vote, latch-keys, independence and very often, financial equality, has come also the "bachelor girl." She has her flat, and .runs her car perhaps, and pays her share like any man. But the term bachelor girl is at best but a makeshift. At 50 and CO she has ceased to be a girl, though sometimes greyheads may be heard speaking of themselves as "we girls." In any case, it is merely a borrowed term, and if it fitted the Eton crop, the short skirt and the hail-fellow-well-met type, it hangs badly on the frills and femininity of the present day, despite the independence. At the moment there is a bachelor girl exhibition in London, run by; women for women, and men may go only if accompanied by a woman. Yet I found quite a number of men exhibiting arid selling the things that women buy and wear. Women police—the smart auxiliary force —not the badly dressed ones from

street duty—were mounting guard. Women athletic championships were being decided, and all the things that women make and need were displayed. The term bachelor girl exhibition, has brought the subject once more into the limelight. Miss Ishbel Mac Donald expressed a preference for it as against spinster, but thought a better word could be found. Is bachelor girl the best term to describe the single woman of to-day? Many people, myself among them, dislike the term very much. There is a definite prejudice against spinster, and old maid is quit- obsolete. Ingenious minda are now joining new words, expressive of this single state, based on freedom, loneliness, latchkeys, independence, comradeship, charm, adaptability and the rest.. In France she is a damoiselle, a charming term which has not changed with modern conditions. In Germany Juhgfrau is the word. Zitella is used in Italy, Soltera in Spain. Lassie is the Scottish word, but it suggests youth, so does Colleen," which is the delightful. Irish version. Such atrocities as "latchette," keyster, lonester, roomster are suggestions too terrible to contemplate. The suggestion of "fremale" is equally appalling. "Singlette" suggests purl two, plain two, or the underwear department. "Catchelor" was surely devised by some unhappy married man. But the point is that many of these spinsters are spinsters from cl t. I don't say they would not marry, but they would think more than twice about it. In many cases the single women have so much more to-day than their married sisters. In the old days any kind of husband was better than none at all. It isn't so to-day. Life holds other attractions. Meanwhile we are officially spinsters on all documents and are likely to remain so, no matter what word is coined to cover us for everyday . use. However, jiust as there are bachelors and bachelors —gay bachelors, old bachelors so too thero are spinsters and spinsters.