Mundane Musings Voluntary Spinsters

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 112, 2 August 1927, Page 5

Mundane Musings Voluntary Spinsters

“It started like this,” explained Molly. “A lot of us decided that we were sick to death of being involuntary spinsters, so we formed a society of voluntary ones. In other words, we put ourselves on the shelf deliberately instead of waiting for time and circumstances to do it.”

“What happens if one of the voluntary spinsters wants to marry?” 1 asked. “Are there any dreadful pains and penalties?”

Molly looked at me more in sorrow than in anger.

“I see that I shall have to enter into explanations,” she sighed. “You obviously think that it’s a joke, whereas we’re in deadly earnest. You live in town and I don’t think that you have the remotest idea of the humiliations that the unmarried girl goes through in the average provincial town. “Take this place. As soon as the boys of a family grow up they go off to seek fame and fortune somewhere else. They come back occasionally, certainly, but they never seem keen on the idea, beloved of writers, of marrying their childhood’s playmates. Instead, they bring back their fiancees and flaunt them in front of our eyes.

“I suppose you think that the girls could follow suit and also go out into the world? Well, some do, of course, but it’s surprising what a lot can’t for some reason or another. Their parents hate the idea or they’ve no special talent or, like me, they’re only daughters. It’s not as easy as you think, especially if you have lived here all your life where it is still thought a bit eccentric for a girl whose parents can afford to keep her to want to earn her own living.

“So here we all are, you see, just waiting to get married without one chance in twenty of doing so. There’s quite a wave of excitement at the moment because we’ve got a curate who is good-looking and unattached. The combination is almost unheard of. “I saw you raise your eyebrows just now when I used the word humiliation, but it’s not a bit too strong. Imagine sitting out dance after dance because there aren’t enough men to go round; feeling wildly envious because the curate has asked your best friend to play a round of golf; trying to hide one’s fury when at last the youngest Smith girl captures the assistant schoolmaster.

“We were talking it over the other day and we hit upon my solution. Now we’re voluntary spinsters and we don’t enter into competitions any more. We dance with each other at dances instead of waiting to be asked. We make up foursomes of our own instead of keeping ourselves free —just in case. We’ve sternly forbidden our mothers to do any more matchmaking on our behalf.

“It’s not purely a selfish society, you see, for just think what a chance it gives the girls who really desperately want to get married. They know nothing about it, of course, for we didn’t waste our breath asking them to join.”

“Is the scheme working well?” I asked. “No one has told me anything definite, but I must admit that I thought your days of spinsterhood were numbered!”

Molly looked at me with a twinkle in her eye. “It’s funny how men never seem to notice you until you’re not there,” she remarked, apparently appropos of nothing. “But, still, you must admit that my idea is a good one?” “Excellent,” I murmured, “from your point of view. But I wonder if some of the involuntary spinsters would agree so wholeheartedly.” Molly merely smiled.

I hope that the young man is ambitious. Molly is really wasted on a provincial town!