Emma Soames Until only about 30 years ago, the word was redolent of sadness and cats, carrying the distinct whiff of mothballs. Spinsterhood spoke of the unmarried daughter lashed to the whims of a 93-year-old mother, of governesses, matrons and long – very long – suffering. But in the wake of feminism, careers, eight-inch heels and choosing – or not – to have children, spinsterhood has become something else entirely.
We will be reminded of the old definition when Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is finally released in British cinemas. For those who have not had the intense pleasure of reading the book by Winifred Watson, Miss Pettigrew is an intensely shy, dowdy governess who has been roundly used and abused by many employers. She then spends a day in the service of nightclub singer Delysia LaFosse and is transformed into a glamorous flirt who sorts out romantic problems all around her, while discovering love, friendship and her own beauty.
That was then. And now? The new spinster may well have been married but is unlikely to have had offspring. As we know, children are famously good at knocking the edges off any extreme tendencies (There is also the possibility that she was too clever to get married in the first instance, finding – dare I say it – most available men to be dull.) For whatever reason, being a stranger to maternity leave, sports days and the ongoing demands of children, she has quite likely climbed to the top of her chosen career; she never left the office early.
She probably has the means to live more comfortably than would have been the case a generation before. She certainly has more control of her own destiny.
The 21st-century spinster is both competitive and bossy: with no children to urge on and discipline, these tendencies have to find other outlets. She provides the backbone and management skills of many voluntary organisations; the newly retired spinster may be found running charity shops rather than putting in a few hours behind the till. Like her famous forebear, Freya Stark, she suffers from wanderlust, unsated by great age and is doughty under extreme circumstances. She still gives inappropriate presents to teenagers and she does not understand how to dress sexily; she gave up on the whole idea of sex years ago – her mind is on higher, or anyway other things.
She considers herself to be mildly eccentric while others flatten themselves against the wall at her approach. Am I a new spinster? I really don’t mind if I am – and therein lies the difference between the old and the new.
I have recently learnt that as late as 1956 every page of Seventeen magazine in America was read and approved by a prelate. Can you imagine Archbishop Williams reading Sugar every week? Wrap your mind around that and discover the greater meaning of the verb to boggle.
I found this gem on the first page of Girls Like Us, by Sheila Weller, a riveting book about the Sixties. The main subjects are Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon. As well as being singer-songwriters who enjoyed huge success at the same, seminal moment in rock history, they had one other thing in common: James Taylor. All the women who came into contact with him fell deeply in love with him. As music’s answer to Warren Beatty, he had affairs with both Carly and Joni. I can’t think how he missed sleeping with Carole – he certainly toured with her and she carried a torch for him. But the main love of his life at that point was heroin. Carly Simon married him and later went through the pain of leaving him when his junkie behaviour became so bad that he didn’t even show up when their three-year-old son was in intensive care after a major operation.
She then lived through the humiliating experience of watching him not only go off with another woman, actress Kathryn Walker, but more significantly finally check himself into rehab. And he has been clean ever since.
I know a number of people who have been through this agony: after years of pain and indecision, they finally leave a mate they still love because of an addiction to drink or drugs and a lifetime of broken promises. Then, disbelievingly and sadly amazed, they observe the ex-addict walk soberly down the aisle with another woman or man. Life has few crueller jokes than this up its sleeve.