Fiction is full of spinsters, each one greater and more terrible than the last. Here are some of the more common species seen in the wild.
Ready To Defrost (Harmless/Temporary)
There is nothing wrong with these women. More to be pitied than censured; they simply were not born for the Cause. They are more likely to be librarians than anything else. Their glasses exist only to be whipped off. Their hair is up only to be coaxed down. They are soft.
Type I: A Warning
Mary Bailey, from It’s A Wonderful Life, is briefly and happily a member of our sisterhood, but only in a fantastic alternate reality George is permitted to visit for a few hours. She returns to married life, and slips from our fingers. The fate of Wives is not known to us. They have been given a strange gift, and dwell not in the Halls of Mandos, and their path is utterly sundered from ours.
Type II: The Melter
Look at her. She is practically melting already. Everything is soft edges and limpid eyes and no fox coats with her. Go to your man and be happy. You were never meant to be a spinster.
Selma and Patty (To The Manner Born)
Some spinsters are made, others born. Selma and Patty were born. They are more archetype than individual — the female equivalent of the Ancient Mariner.
“But Mallory,” I hear you cry, “Both Selma and Patty enter into relationships. What of Troy McClure? What of Principal Skinner?”
My darling idiots. A spinster can do anything she likes, except marry, and I am not entirely convinced that even then she is entirely lost to us. A woman who owns an iguana named Jub-Jub, who wears her hair in an enormous gray beehive and does not shave her legs, who thinks nothing of riding on a white horse stark naked behind her twin sister — this is a woman with the heart of a spinster, and no amount of secondary characters she dates can change that.
A spinster in her prime can frighten a child with a single word, or a glance. The frozen terror on Lisa’s face tells you everything you need to know about these powerful spinsters. A good spinster is but one step removed from a witch, after all.
A Selma-and-Patty-style spinster is irrevocably set in her ways. She is incapable of change, but capable of greatness. She does not know how to compromise. She likes everything to be arranged just so. She is surly and combative at work, but infinitely gentle towards her iguana.
The Harmless Eccentric
“But the Beales were real people, not fictional,” I hear you say (Christ, you are mouthy). They have entered the realm of fiction by virtue of being eternal, my short-sighted poppet.
A key component of the Spinster Mythos is financial independence — or at least the appearance of it. It’s very difficult to be a spinster when you can’t afford to live on your own, when you depend upon the income or the goodwill of others. This is why so many fictional spinsters are as wealthy as they are eccentric: it’s their money that allows them to behave strangely. Without money, without a home of your own, society will find a way to be beat the strangeness out of you. (It will still try even if you do have money, but then you can build a door of pearl and of onyx to keep society away from your house.)
When I think of all the women — real and fictional — who simply could not afford to become spinsters throughout history, my heart aches. There should be a Spinster Dream Fund for women who need a small apartment overlooking a river or a cottage on stilts propped on the side of a mountain that is continually wrapped in fog.
Marilla had her own house and a surrogate daughter whose diapers she never even had to change. This woman went through the entire life cycle without ever having to pick someone up or have a non-grownup-conversation with, and I have enormous respect for that.
The Chessmaster
The Chessmaster goes beyond mere self-sufficiency and begins to absorb the life force of others. She may dictate their fates, or she may simply toy with them. Other people’s lives are the ultimate game.
Catwoman is a spinster. She dates, but she never marries. Catwoman is always perfectly and blissfully alone. Look at that woman. She wants for nothing. She controls everything. She needs no one.
“I will wear a man’s bowler hat, and I will solve mysteries.” Miss Marple had the greatest life plan of all.
Look at how happy short hair and cigarettes and draping yourself in simple dark fabrics and not getting married can make someone. Tell me you don’t want that for yourself (cigarettes optional, of course, but it’s a key component of the lifestyle pictured here).
Miss Havisham is the spinster qua spinster. Who could help but love her? She controls time. She stays in wedding dress shape 365 days out of the year — well into her fifties, which is no mean feat — and turns a boy into a gentleman for the sole purpose of expanding his hopes and dreams, that he might feel sorrow all the more keenly when she finally crushes them. Spiders live in her hair, and in her heart. Nothing can touch her, and she never apologizes for anything (in my version of Great Expectations, she dies in a Mrs. Danvers-style house fire rather than ask Pip to forgive her. I recommend you do the same).
The Hermit Queen
“But Mallory,” I hear you say again (you are complaining a great deal today), “didn’t Galadriel have a husband?”
No. She didn’t.
“Yes, she did — his name was Celeborn.”
No, it wasn’t.
“I’m sure it was. He was even in the movie for a minute.”
Think about it, though. Really think about it, and I think you’ll realize that Celeborn was a collective hallucination brought about by a brief fever dream, and not an actual husband to Galadriel. Galadriel had no husband. She was a handmaiden of the Eternal Sisterhood. Once she made out with Sailor Moon, and it was incredible, but the two of them realized they could never be together because their work was so important, so they remained friends with the deepest mutual regard for one another.
Man-Killers
There are several contradictory schools of thought on this issue — is it better for a spinster to kill men, or simply to ignore them? Would not killing men require one to think about them, even hold multiple conversations with them?
The debate lives on, but the men do not.
“Oh, Mortimer, don’t be so inquisitive. The gentleman died because he drank some wine with poison in it.”
The Recluse
Elinor from The Haunting of Hill House, certainly. She wears frumpy wool coats and out-of-style Peter Pan collars and wouldn’t say bo to a goose, but she manages to commit suicide in a way that feels like a murder. She becomes the house, and the house becomes her, and no one who met her can ever forget it.
The Heiress with Olivia de Havilland could just as easily be renamed The Spinster’s Triumph. Look at how masterfully she ascends the stairs. The house is hers, and everything in it, including her own self.
This image, right here — this is the defining tableaux of compulsory heterosexuality.
Aspirational
Norma Desmond marries (how ironic!) the best qualities of every other category of spinster. She is richer than the devil’s mother, she is vicious, she is eccentric, she is isolated, she is paralyzed by her own sense of grandiosity, she leads men to ruin and death.
Tags: classification index, spinsters, taxonomy
needed to immediately come down to comment after reading “dwell not in the Halls of Mandos”
MALLORY I AM /SCREAMING/ WITH JOY
also i love everything else about this, obvi
I read that line three times to make sure I was fully absorbing its incredible awesomeness.
That was the line where I laid everything else aside to bask in the glory of this piece properly.
Truly, truly, truly magnificent. I find myself in an utter quandary, because this article makes me want to be a spinster, but that line makes me want to marry Mallory.
The debate lives on, but the men do not.
yes.
Well timed for my recent breakup. There is a silver lining!
Congratulations on freeing yourself from the chains of Man. Here is your bowler hat, now please select your life plan: solving mysteries, becoming a recluse, poisoning drifters with wine.
I refuse to choose! Feminist spinsterhood means I CAN have it all!
If you’re efficient enough, you can combine all three!
And solving the mystery of “who killed all these drifters?” is pretty easy when you were the one who did it!
And that’s what I always said about Jessica Fletcher, why was she never questioned when the real through-line in the series was, where ever she goes death follows? Where did they think she got all of the material for her mystery novels?
I like to think that I’m a Hermit Queen that will one day level up to Aspirational.
I only regret my marriage when Mallory writes about the delight of spinsterdom.
I do love him, but I admit I have a keen joy in sitting alone in my house, quietly knitting things that will only ever grace my body.
Yes, this is exactly how I feel about my marriage, too.
As do I. He’s a chill dude, I like him lots, and he never drinks my wine or eats my almond croissants. But surely he wouldn’t mind if I wished to live as a recluse for 9 months out of the year? I’ll come back for Christmas time. He can call me Persephone. I won’t mind.
Yeah, as much as I love him, I sometimes miss having an evening sitting in my apartment, with everything exactly how I like it and everything around me was mine and everything I did was without compromise.
“Man Caves” are a socially acceptable way for men to achieve this: everything in the room is theirs and it all exists without compromise. Women are permitted to have kitchens (where they toil for others), and sewing or craft rooms (which, again, involve toil… even if pleasurable/hobby toil) but there is no “woman cave” and someone requesting one would be laughed at.
To be fair to my boyfriend, I do actually have an almost Woman Cave. It is referred to as my reading room, because it has my bookshelf and my comfy chair, and my collection of teapots and various things and I painted it in the colour I wanted. Unfortunately, due to space reasons it’s only half the room, the other half is the desk we both use for working from home which has his stuff on it too. He doesn’t have a Man Cave. If we ever get a bigger house I’m so claiming my own room, though.
It’d be nice if we had enough space for either, but this is the UK and our house is tiny.
However, I work from home and he is out at a roleplaying game at least once a week, so I do get some spinster time.
This is so true, we went through this for YEARS with boyfriends we were living with, no matter how nice they were otherwise they just could not comprehend that we wanted A Room of Our Own.
I have a TARDIS tent. It is Forbidden for any to enter without my permission.
…Except for the corgi.
I missed my chance to get one at last year’s ComicCon, and I really still do regret it.
Oh yes. I’ve appropriated the guest room as my ‘Boudoir’, and whenever I’m forced to vacate due to company, I always wonder how long it’ll be until my molars grind themselves to powder.
LIBRARY. In our dream house, I will have a library and he will have a workshop and we will.be content.
In the meantime, separate bedrooms work wonders
I feel sad sometimes that I haven’t had that (lived in shared university houses, although with my own room with a blessed lock on the door, then back with my parents, then (now) with my partner). Having a space and life that are mine alone sounds great.
Oh yes. I am fond of our partner and other people love him very much, but we live with not only him and the two kids but also our (extremely generous and lovely) male housemate /who works from home/ and the number of hours we are actually alone in the house during a calendar year is like … 5.
One thing I am looking forward to in December is our housemate will be visiting his family and I may hand the children to our partner and say ‘Go have fun. Come home later.’
This is perfect and wonderful.
Important question: can Jessica Fletcher be categorized as a spinster? I mean, technically she’s a widow, but everything about her life post-Frank is like my ideal spinsterhood: cozy New England house, lumpy sweaters, putting men who underestimate her in their proper place. Honorary spinster?
I agree, and I think Colleen Donaghy exists in the same (albeit much wealthier) category. Oh my GOD I wish we had a tv show where Colleen Donaghy and Jessica Fletcher were friends.
YES. My dream show would have them as odd-couple mystery-solving BFFs who also break into song and dance routines occasionally.
Born-again spinster?
Self-made spinster who saw the error of her ways and rectified the situation?
Much as I love her, I would classify her as no more than an honorary spinster. As you said, she was married, and happily, and still mourns her late husband. Those are not the actions of a True Spinster.
Celeborn’s status as a hallucination is confirmed by the fact that he skips the main boats and takes a boat to the west by himself years later.
Yeah, good luck with that, dark elf
The amount of Tolkein nerdage going on in this post is filling my heart with such joy, especially since it’s married to misandry (an all-too-rare match).
I feel that a Simarillion + misandry post would go over really well. And it would be so easy to do … so very easy.
“Male failures of Thingol, Finarfin, Turin and more”
Maeglin. Fëanor. Thingol.
And conversely, Lúthien’s invisibility cape, Barahir’s wife Emeldir, and Haleth.
Can we add the category of “spinster queen” or something to this list for Haleth?
“once she made out with Sailor Moon, and it was incredible”
I had never thought of this before today but now my soul burns for want of it.
*flies directly into the sun*
Magnificent, truly.
Also, when I saw Fellowship, it had been so long since I’d read the books that I had entirely forgotten about Celeborn’s existence, and so I just sort of assumed he was some kind of servant or valet or something.
Let’s call him consort, shall we?
Consort implies some sort of authority, though, doesn’t it? I wish we had a male term for a concubine.
Cicisbeo? Well, no, that is kind of the reverse, since it is the guy who waits on the married woman. Hmn.
I do like the term consort for Celeborn. He’s got some power, but it’s pretty much entirely due to his relationship with Galadriel. Consort nicely summarizes that relationship, since consorts are defined by their marriage and the vast majority of their social status comes from that marriage.
For whatever reason, I thought Celeborn was already officially known as Galadriel’s consort, but I think that’s probably just my own headcanon getting in the way. Absolutely he is only there as her armcandy.
Concuboy?
“Companion”?
A seat-filler, really.
He could be both?
I think Tolkien created him for the following reasons: a) needed a reason for Galadriel to hang around Middle Earth so long and b) needed Galadriel to have a daughter to marry Elrond.
Otherwise, disposable.
Fellowship was just on TV here yesterday and I completely thought Celeborn was some kind of valet. I guess that guy was Celeborn? Whatever.
His Quenya name is Teleporno. I think that says it all.
Does Mame Dennis from Auntie Mame count as a Spinster? (ignore her marriage) Clearly she’s not the isolated type but she has some Chessmaster going on.
Even if she’s not technically a spinster, Auntie Mame totally has the noble heart of one. I mean, that living room with the levers and the adjustable couches? AMAZING
Only person missing: Aunt Mame.
Oh my goodness that video of Lucille Ball and Bea Arthur singing Bosom Buddies from Mame. I want to be both of those ladies simultaneously.
Will I be reading this out loud to my family at Christmas dinner when asked if I have a boyfriend yet? ALL SIGNS POINT TO YES.
Brb sending this out as my Christmas letter so relatives stop asking if I’ll ever settle down
I aspire to Chessmaster spinsterhood, but fear I may end up a Harmless (but not Temporary) spinster. But I’m only 28, so I think I have plenty of time to explore the full extent of my spinster potential.
this spinster librarian who aims for harmless eccentric (but is really just a recluse) heartily approves!
I *just* watched Sunset Boulevard for the first time last night! Delightful.
Speaking of classics, I need an official adjudication on Mrs. Muir of “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” fame, as living in a fog-encrusted house on a sea cliff with your lifelong servant shows strong dedication to the cause, but giving it all up for the most passive-aggressive ghost ever just because you died seems to deduct points.
I would put her in the Temporary, Soft category. She spinsters well, but her heart was never really in it.
I was sadly disappointed in Mrs. Muir upon reviewing the film recently. I feel like her acting wasn’t very good (and the film is full of over-acting, I mean, Rex Harrison and George Sanders weren’t playing it subtle or anything). I feel very strongly that she is never a true spinster. I will always enjoy that movie for George Sanders’ complete awfulness, though. And his voice.
I don’t know if I agree with Eleanor’s inclusion here. While she is old enough to be a spinster if you consider her chronological age, emotionally and mentally she is trapped in childhood – or mid-adolescence at best – because of her prolonged, unwanted attachment to her mother. That’s why she wears outdated clothes and juvenile styles like Peter Pan collars, why she has a mild crush on Whatever That Dude’s Name Is but never acts on it (she likes the idea of romance, but the actual reality of having a relationship, and a sexual one at that, does not seem to be on her radar), and why she forms such an intense but superficial friendship with Theodora – like two girls who meet at summer camp, are BFFs for a month, and then forget all about each other when they get home.
Theodora might also be mistaken for a spinster, but she is actually a lesbian.
It should be noted that the house’s second owner was definitely a spinster, and the house maybe killed the third owner for neglecting the spinster due to male attention.
The companion? I just read the book again and I don’t recall that.
I am making it my life goal to be a hermit queen. Actually that has always been my goal, I just didn’t have a name for it before.
ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAIR, etc.
exactly
The first character I thought of reading this article was Francis Owens (Stockard Channing) in Practical Magic. The category of spinster witches in general is pretty badass.
Granny Weatherwax. Spinster Witch Extraordinaire.
When I got married in the UK, I was a bit miffed that they put me down as a spinster on my actual marriage certificate. So I have an actual legal document declaring my unmarried self a spinster.
Wow, really? I’ll have to check mine, but I don’t think it had anything like that.
the paragraph on marilla explains perfectly why i have always admired her.
Someone come fight me about “The the manner born” vs. “To the manor born.” #TEAM MANOR
Oh TOTALLY. I also hate when people say “reign in.” What does that even MEAN?
It means “pull on the ropes you have looped through the gap in the horse teeth.”
Not unless the horse and reins are somehow royal.
No need to fight, it is “to the manor born”. The end.
But Mallory is making a pun here. It’s a pun, I tell you!
Yes! It’s a pun! That is why it is so endlessly entertaining, yes???
ok but the bouvier sisters don’t OWN a manor and thus it wouldn’t have worked!!
I love you, Mallory. *bows before your altar*
“Shut up, I’m rich” is my new answer to any and all criticism. Now, to actually get rich…
Ha, I was reading something about QEII’s marriage and it showed her marriage certificate which ALSO listed her as “spinster.” Crud, I can’t find it now.
Mallory, this was exactly the thing I needed to read the day after getting some rather disturbing news. You have made a sad and anxious woman start grinning from ear to ear, so thanks!
Also, I want to nominate Lisbeth Fischer in “Cousin Bette” for the position of Chessmaster, and if you haven’t seen the BBC adaptation of said novel you should, because Margaret Tyzack and Helen Mirren are both WONDERFUL in it. It is a paradise of misandry and period costumes.
OMG Cousin Bette! TERRIFYING!
I want a shirt or a mug or something that proclaims “Powered by diabolical force, or the black magic of the Will.”
And tremendous props to Rachel Tapley for this: http://the-toast.net/2014/08/18/tell-youre-honore…
And as a librarian I care about copyright and would therefore suggest that you check your library for the DVD of the miniseries rather than going to YouTube and seeing whether or not someone has posted it there in its entirety. (Sadly, it is no longer in print.)
I can confirm that having very short hair + wearing only dark fabrics + spurning men is a recipe for success. However I have deviated from the original recipe in that I substitute wine for cigarettes.
This is pretty much my approach to successful spinsterhood, too.
This time of year me and my two younger brothers punctuate random sentences with “She’s in THE LIBRARY!!!!!!!!”
Oh, Clarence, you ridiculous fool. Libraries are the shit and Mary might be (read: definitely 100% is) even sexier in that “old maid” getup.
I was rewatching It’s a Wonderful Life on Saturday, and it did occur to me that Clarence has a strange set of priorities. He’s really, really reluctant to break the news to George that Mary’s “in THE LIBRARY!” This is after he’s done nothing to prepare him for being sent to an alternate reality where the people he’s known all his life don’t recognise him, he doesn’t expect him to have any problems finding out that his arch-enemy has triumphed, his home town is a hellish 1940s Sodom and his war-hero brother died in childhood, but the news that his wife works in a library is just too much to take? Wouldn’t it have been more crushing to find out that she did marry, like, that annoying guy who kept saying ‘Haw haw’ to everyone and to see her alternate life and children because she’d never known him?
And yeah, I second this. Libraries are awesome, and libraries run by Donna Reed in a stylish tweed suit even more so.
My mom is a librarian and this is hand’s down my family’s favorite moment of that movie. “OH GOD, NOT THE LIBRARY!!!!!”
Also, yes, 100% to everything you said. Mary has her spectacles and her books and feels no need to contour or get her hair done. That’s Living the Dream.
“Without money, without a home of your own, society will find a way to be beat the strangeness out of you.” Leave it to Mallory to casually drop a gem like that in a “humor” piece.
I’m pretty sure I’m a born spinster. Spinsters are my favorite kind of book characters and if I see “spinster” anywhere in a blurb, I’ll probably read the book. I like The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, of course, and also the Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, for a more depressing take, as well as some spinster-makes-good (“good”) books like Persuasion, the Blue Castle, or the Making of a Marchioness. Anyone have recommendations?
The Blue Castle — best “spinster makes good” book.
Spinster throws off societal conventions to have awesome sex in the woods. Everything works out.
Except I am always disappointed in how it ends. I kind of wish they’d just stayed in the woods dirtbagging it up gleefully without spoiling everything with secret identities and vast wealth and approval from our ex-spinster’s horrible family and whatnot.
Pretty much. Hang out in the cabin with the cats.
Not much of a conclusion though
Everyone’s agreed that Valency and Barney definitely had sex, right? They were married, and I think the text says that they only had one bed, and she scandalises her family by saying how lovely it is to feel your husband’s arms around you. Marriage of convenience with great friendship and added sex sounds like the best life choice.
Totally had sex. Especially after the “thrill of her first kiss” on the rocks.
Still wonder how it went down the first few times.
“WHO WILL RUB MY SHOULDERS WITH REDFERN’S LINIMENT?!”
Barbara Pym is full of wonderful spinsters (“excellent women”)!
Oh yeah! I ordered that through ILL I hope it gets here soon.
Not a novel, but a short story: “A New England Nun” by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. The spinster has a suitor, but she’s such a born spinster that in the end she’s secretly relieved when her engagement falls through and she can go back to her life that she’s arranged exactly the way she likes it: “Louisa, all alone by herself that night, wept a little, she hardly knew why, but the next morning, on waking, she felt like a queen who, after fearing lest her domain be wrested away from her, sees it firmly insured in her possession.”
He messed up her book order! I’d dump the bastard too.
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day! It’s got a really strong theme of women helping women, and I love it.
I love this list, but I feel that Miss Fisher needs to be added to it somewhere; spinsters so glamorous and self-fulfilled in their independence that they inspire others to put their engagements on indefinite hold must be celebrated. We’ve all been watching Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, right? It is on Netflix, if any Toasties have not yet encountered it.
Miss Fisher is definitely Aspirational, no?
Indeed! Though personally I would choose to be rather more certain that the people I am sleeping with are not murderers. Otherwise, I would happily steal her life away for myself and treasure it forever.
But Miss Fisher totally has the strength of will to sleep with a murder suspect, continue to investigate him, and then destroy him utterly if need be. I’m sure of it.
This list suffers from a sad lack of Phryne Fisher. All posts on any topic should include at least one mention of Phryne Fisher, let alone a post on awesome spinsters.
Phryne is above and beyond a list, the Supreme Queen of Spinsters! But for sure this list sorely needs updating with both Phryne and Mac.
I also love Miwako Teshigawara in Honey and Clover. Every spinster should have a dog like Leader.
Phryne is the Queen of Spinsters – this list definitely needs Phryne! And Mac.
I also love Miwako in Honey and Clover. Every spinster needs a dog like Leader.
I would like to nominate Miss Rebecca Hubbard from Postman Pat, my first and archetypal spinster:
Postmanpat.wikia.com/wiki/rebecca_hubbard
Her song is excellent. Could anything else encapsulate white English rural spinsterhood in so few words?
Miss Rebecca Hubbard is a strong-willed lady
Never thinks of using any words like maybe
When she starts a job she likes to see it through
And always like to feel that she has lots to do
Church bazaars, fetes, fairs and dramas
Cubs and Brownies, guilds for farmers
Collections for church charities
Garden parties with cream teas
And in between these fine necessities
Keeps horses, hens and honeybees.
She is never seen without her bike and her tweed skirt. She is Lynda Snell for pre-schoolers and I <3 her.
Wow, that is so perfect.
I think there are people in my system who would really, really like to be Miss Rebecca Hubbard. This is why they read so many novels from the 1930s. And want to build a henhouse in our backyard.
Your Lynda Snell mention has me trying to think of spinsters in The Archers, but I am not succeeding. (I love Lynda Snell, though, however much she is a figure of fun.)
Postman Pat with his black and white cat!
“Cranford”! Also “Cousin Phillis”. And “Gaudy Night” if you haven’t already (many academic spinsters in the supporting cast.) And Constance Fenimore Woolson’s short stories have a lot of women artists just traveling the world, making art and being alone and only dying OCCASIONALLY. “Castle Nowhere” has the Great Lakes ones collected, and “Rodman the Keeper” does the same with the Southern ones. And she has a cool spinster called Miss Lois in her first novel, “Anne”, and people describe Lois as “the New England woman” as if it’s her job.
(Damn: this was supposed to be a reply to YounLeafedJune.)
Confession: I could not get through Cranford. It was so freaking boring. I want so much to like it but I just couldn’t. Any advice?
Hmmm. Have you seen the miniseries? Eileen Atkins KILLS IT and is the misandrist mentor we all dream of. (At one point she tells her protegee that “A woman is never the equal of a man. She is his superior in every single case.”) The young men working on the production used to sidle up to her and tell her they wished they had had an aunt or godmother like her. And the screenwriters (all women!) combined “Cranford” with a couple of other novellas and did a great job of creating plot where there had been only incident and character development. I confess I saw the miniseries before I read the book, and when I read the book I felt as if I were filling myself in on Cranford life. But goodness knows we’ve had whole threads about how sometimes one just doesn’t like a book one’s “supposed to” like, so don’t feel bad!
Elizabeth Gaskell was awesome, by the way. She started writing social protest novels after her baby son died, because she thought that by raising awareness of the vile living and working conditions for working people in Manchester, she could move the owners and landlords to improve them, thereby decreasing child mortality and sparing other mothers the grief she was suffering. Jenny Uglow has written a fine biography of her.
And if you like Eileen Atkins, she does a delicious turn as an Aspirational/Chessmaster spinster (well, self-made widow) named Vanity Fair in a goofy made-for-TV movie about 20’s spies called “She Fell Among Thieves.” Malcolm McDowell is the good guy. It’s in a castle. There are Rolls Royces and a Hispano-Suiza.
Gaudy Night is totally spinster-core. I wrote my Honours thesis on pretty much that exact subject. Everyone should read Dorothy L. Sayers’s later novels but especially Gaudy Night. They are so delightful.
brb building a door of pearl and of onyx to keep society away
I am married but continue to live like a spinster, buying my own things, decorating our house with art and photos I have taken and not family pictures, climbing the career ladder, wearing hats and gloves inherited from my dead grandmother, doing activities and occasionally trips without my husband. This baffles my fundamentalist Christian in-laws, for whom a woman exists only to cater to the husband-children axis.
I don’t think any of this will change when I have children.
I… I really really want to hear more about Galadriel and Sailor Moon. So much do I want this.
I didn’t realize until now that living a spinster life without men, fabulous short hair, draped in dark fabrics and indolence was the exact description of what I want to do/be when I grow up.
Twitter bio: updated.
This spinster librarian is loving all the reading and viewing suggestions coming out of this thread. I think they should be the basis for a Spinsterhood Reading List on Goodreads or somewhere.
The only thing in the world I would ever want to marry is THIS POST. <3 <3 <3 It’s so beautiful and perfect I want to cry with joy.
I’m going to go break up with everything right now
and wear a hat whilst doing so
“There should be a Spinster Dream Fund for women who need a small apartment overlooking a river or a cottage on stilts propped on the side of a mountain that is continually wrapped in fog.”
Ummmm helloooooooooooooooo. I would totally donate to a Toast Scholarship for precisely this purpose. Or a Toast Fellowship? (Ladyship?) Residency? Anti-Residency?
“Bolt the door, Maria.”
“But, Miss Soper…”
“Maria, BOLT THE DOOR.”
de Havilland’s Catherine Soper is the queen of fictional spinster heaven. She even ascends at the end of the film, like the Virgin Mary.
As her light gradually rises away from the light outside, leaving her erstwhile beau in darkness while she moves freely from one part of her domain to the other.
My new apartment is on the third floor, on a crazy steep hill, overlooking a river, and I can confirm that it is indeed a glorious fortress of solitude. Family and friends complain that it’s too difficult to get to, and apologize for not visiting more, and I smile a little and whisper to myself, “it’s a feature, not a bug tra la la spinster lair don’t care”
I’m in. I already have one cat and more books than bookshelves (and an abundance of yarn). Where does one find a fabulous, spinster-worthy hat?
I’m confused as to why Marilla Cuthbert is included here, seeing as how she did in fact have a husband, Matthew (who was the one who persuaded her to give Anne’s adoption a chance in the first place)…
HE WAS HER BROTHER
I want to like this more than once. THEY WERE BROTHER AND SISTER, SHE IS MISS CUTHBERT.
If anything, that might make her more of a spinster. As much as some spinsters might shun men, choosing a platonic male life partner also seems like a form of devotion to the art.
Matthew is Marilla’s brother, not her husband. They both live long old Canadian lives and never marry (although I think there is some drivel about Marilla having a thing with Gilbert Blythe’s father that is easy to ignore)
Yeah, she had a big fight with John Blythe and they broke up, though if he’s as big a twit as Gilbert, small loss.
The yearbook of the first (all women’s) university I attended was called The Spinster. On the inside cover of the older editions was the inscription ‘Where singleness is bliss, ’tis folly to be wives.’
Perfection.
Spinster 4 lyfe.
brb embroidering that on a sampler
I feel strongly that Mrs. Adela Bradley qualifies as a spinster, although she is technically a widow I think? But she never mentions her husband, carries on a delightful flirtation with her chauffeur, wears truly fantastic hats, and writes books on criminal psychology. And is played by Diana Rigg, which is surely extra points.
The fact that there was never more than one episode of that is simply criminal (no pun intended).
There were five, though! I’ve got a box set of them – the pilot plus four more, including one with the world’s most adorable baby lesbians. If you mean no more than one season, I wholeheartedly agree.
I’ve only ever seen one! And Netflix only has the one episode. Man, I need to do some serious internetting.
Pretty sure I’ve already cycled through a couple of these categories – now I have a bucket list of spinster achievements to earn before I die! Thanks!
This article has clarified my thoughts about what I want from life. It all sounds so perfect!
That said, I suppose marriage could work in the right conditions. My mum and dad get along really well because they have separate bedrooms and one of my dad’s friends is building wendy house in their back garden specifically to be her “Woman-cave” and no other family members are allowed in it unless they bring her wine.
I think I could live like that.
Project Gutenberg does not have Recollections of a Spinster Aunt, but it does have The Spinster Book, which features such gems as:
For instance, there seems to be no good reason why a man’s way of sharpening a pencil is any better than a woman’s. It is difficult to see just why it is advisable to cover the thumb with powdered graphite, and expose that useful member to possible amputation by a knife directed uncompromisingly toward it, when the pencil might be pointed the other way, the risk of amputation avoided, and the shavings and pulverised graphite left safely to the action of gravitation and centrifugal force. Yet the entire race of men refuse to see the true value of the feminine method, and, indeed, any man would rather sharpen any woman’s pencil than see her do it herself.
and
Not unfrequently, when a man asks a woman to marry him, he means that he wants her to help him love himself, and if, blinded by her own feeling, she takes him for her captain, her pleasure craft becomes a pirate ship, the colours change to a black flag with a sinister sign, and her inevitable destiny is the coral reef.
There’s also some nonsense about men’s vanity being harmless, but I’ll put that down to the period.
I am loving this book and yes, there are many quotes worthy of requoting. Thank you!
“A widow’s degree of blandishment is conservatively estimated at twentyfive spinster power.” This book is gold!
Could any real character have the Quenya name of Teleporno? No, because it is the most ridiculous name possible. Therefore, Celeborn does not exist.
I feel bad for Marilla because she ended up having to adopt the Keith twins. The orphan you adopted has worked out really well and is practically and adult, and now you have to start all over again with some six year-olds? No thank you.
“Could any real character have the Quenya name of Teleporno? No, because it is the most ridiculous name possible. Therefore, Celeborn does not exist.”
Flawless logic.
Well thank goodness, now I know what the life I’ve been building for myself is called!
This is balm to my spinster soul.
i live for this. that eartha kitt photo, AHHHHHH. mallory, your wisdom is infinite.
ARSENIC AND OLD LACE.
This is my sister and I, if only she hadn’t gotten married.
(Though, in truth, we banished the husband to the garage for the first five years they were married, and chased him out of the house altogether in the sixth year, so that he has literally rented a garage-like space across town and he only comes home to eat, sleep, and shower. He has learned to speak only after pausing for a very long time to ascertain whether one of us would, in fact, grant him permission to do so.
We usually don’t.)
Oh Mallory, you have done me in.
At every turn, I tucked in a breath and dared to hope for the Aunts from Arsenic in Old Lace, Miss Marple (though Joan Hickson is supreme, I shall let Rutherford slide), Marilla Cuthbert, The Heiress.
I would like to add, Ethel Barrymore as “Miss Spinney” from the film Portrait of Jennie (starring Joseph Cotten and the plucky, winsome Jennifer Jones) – a firm yet tender spinster employing her solitude to her advantage.
And of course, one of my favorites, Bette Davis as the ugly-duckling-turned swan in Now, Voyager.
Midge from Vertigo has always appealed to my sensibility – for what is a spinster without a healthy amount of self-righteous pining?
Why hasn’t anyone made a film of Lolly Willowes? Laura would totally be on this list.
That sounds fascinating. Now I want to read your honours thesis!
I often ask myself what Miss Lydgate would do, which explains why my desk looks the way it does.
That sounds fascinating. Now I want to read your honours thesis!
I often ask myself what Miss Lydgate would do, which explains why my desk looks the way it does.
Yes, Miss Lydgate! She is a gem and a treasure! Have you seen the mini series based on Gaudy Night? If not, I recommend it highly. Harriet, Miss Martin, and Miss De Vine were exactly as I pictured them. Also, they perfectly nailed Lord Peter.
As for my honours thesis, the process of writing it so scarred me (I was a gaunt figure during those few moths, and I almost missed my oral defence when I arrived late to what I thought was the correct room but turned out to be an electrical closet!) that I have not reread it since the morning of my defence a year and a half ago and have largely repressed its contents. However, because I have a copy right next to me (#nevertidy), I can tell you that it was called “‘Much Learning Hath Made Thee Mad’: Characterization, Focalization, and Women’s Education Debates in Dorothy L. Sayers’s Gaudy Night.” I spent way too much time reading about spinsters, actually, so it’s pretty heavy on the men being afraid of educated single women and pretty light on excellent literary scholarship. Perhaps over Christmas I will imbibe a strong drink and reread it.
ETA: in reply to Siddons Packard
Yes! I wish the adaptation had kept more closely to the novel (why the “Lord Peter Defies the Swastika” scene on the German train?) but the casting was perfect (you could tell all those actresses had read the book.) Also, when the Folio Society was publishing the LPW novels Natacha Ledwidge did perfectly elegant illustrations that, again, look just the way I would have drawn them if I could draw that well, right down to Harriet’s shadowy eyes.
You probably have seen this (you may have posted it!) but I ran across this the other day: someone was trying to match real-life dons from Sayers’ Somerville years to the ones in the book: http://lordpeter.org/sayers/brittain.php
I salute you for writing a thesis at all. Spinsters make for good reading. Strange how easy it is to terrify some men, isn’t it?
Yes! I wish the adaptation had kept more closely to the novel (why the "Lord Peter Defies the Swastika" scene on the German train?) but the casting was perfect (you could tell all those actresses had read the book.) Also, when the Folio Society was publishing the LPW novels Natacha Ledwidge did perfectly elegant illustrations that, again, look just the way I would have drawn them if I could draw that well, right down to Harriet's shadowy eyes.
You probably have seen this (you may have posted it!) but I ran across this the other day: someone was trying to match real-life dons from Sayers' Somerville years to the ones in the book: http://lordpeter.org/sayers/brittain.php
I salute you for writing a thesis at all. Spinsters make for good reading. Strange how easy it is to terrify some men, isn't it?
Petition to start the Spinster Dream Fund.
Here you go, Mallory! They also built a row of cottages to house impoverished spinsters:
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/a-la-ronde/
I know she got married, but not for very long, so let’s never forget Auntie Mame. Another of the great spinsters.
I’d add the one-of-the-boys spinster. That is my favorite type!
World’s best spinster! Marianne Moore — she crafted herself into a fictional persona with her baseball throwing and tricorn hat. http://poetrycrush.com/?s=Moore&submit=Search
Mallory, I love you, but no Jean Brodie? How could you.