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Spinster

Making a Life of One's Own
FindingJane
Sep 01, 2016FindingJane rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
The pleasures of living alone. The simple, quiet gratification of curling up in bed, on a sofa or a kitchen chair with a book and a cup of tea. The joy of heading out to the shops, the bookstores, the movies, theater, clubs, parks whenever you want, without having to ask someone’s permission or phone to let anyone know where you’re going or when you’ll be back. Because a woman’s life for many centuries was circumscribed by the expectation that she would marry and have children, such freedom was rarely hers—before or after marriage. In ages gone by when marriages were arranged, getting attached to a man was demanded and child-bearing was expected. Practically the only women exempt from such demands were whores, nuns and priestesses. Even today, when women get together, one of the main topics of conversation will be who’s married, who’s dating, who’s getting married and who broke up with whom. Ms. Bolick explores what it means for a woman to pursue singledom, to reject consciously the roles that society places on women. In her life-long search for who she was as a person alone—not a daughter, girlfriend or sex partner—she took as inspiration and tutors women of bygone ages. Some of the names she quotes are familiar to most modern readers. Others are tantalizing strangers. Ms. Bolick is an educated woman and her erudition is on display as she dissects, elucidates and explores the backgrounds of these five women and the many that impacted their lives or were influenced by them. Her writing captivates as she struggles to sort out what made these women so determined to be single and how well or poorly they succeeded. These long-dead women hold surprises. They may have been single but they were hardly celibate. A few of them had affairs with men and women and bravely faced scandal as they did so. Others were wealthy ladies to their fingertips; others barely escaped their hardscrabble origins. All had something to offer Ms. Bolick and she wants us to know that they have something to offer us, too. These ladies battled social structure, politics and even the laws to gain equal rights for their sex. They were writers, journalists and even poets but they all played a larger life in the worlds around them. “Spinster” is a grand yet easily accessible exploration of what it takes to be a woman. Ms. Bolick isn’t so arrogant as to pretend all of her questions have been answered or that this book is an instruction manual for all the young girls who are searching to define themselves. But it’s a primer as well as a haunting glimpse into bygone ages and the single women who boldly strove to be something more than wives and mothers.