LEAP YEAR
THE PROPOSAL CUSTOM.
800 TEAKS OLD. 1032 is Leap Year. Apart from the necessity for keeping the calendar in step with the passing time, Leap Year has another significance—it is the blissful period in which a maid may do her own wooing and coyly ask her swain: “Will you be mine'?’’
The origin of the amiable custom goes back nearly SOO years to the following law enacted in Scotland: “It is statut and ordaint that during the rein of hir maist blossit Mageste, for ilk ycare kuownc as lope ycrc, ilk mayden ladye of both highc and lowc catait shall hac libertic to spoke ye man she likes, albeit he refuses to talk hir to be his- lawful wife, ho shall be mulcted in ye sum one pound or less, as his estate may be.” There is the law, and there is the origin of the custom which spread from Scotland to France two centuries later and from France to 'Genoa and Florence.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/PATM19320307.2.42
Bibliographic details
Patea Mail, Volume LIII, 7 March 1932, Page 4
Word Count
165LEAP YEAR Patea Mail, Volume LIII, 7 March 1932, Page 4
Using This Item
Copyright in this material is licensed to the National Library of New Zealand by Jim Clarkson. You can copy, communicate, adapt or reproduce this material for any purpose.
Log in