Bachelor’s Day comes once every four years, but women in books – from the Wife of Bath to Persuasion’s Anne Elliot – have often made their intentions clear
Today is 29 February, so it is Bachelor’s Day: the one day every four years where women are encouraged to ask men to marry them. Aside from the newspaper stunts every leap year, there don’t seem to be many actual instances of this happening in popular culture. It is the case in literature, too: it is simply rare to find women in books proposing marriage any day of the year.
There are a few: Catherine Arrowpoint in George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda says the decisive word to her beau, Herr Klesmer: “Why should I not marry the man who loves me, if I love him?” To her the effort was something like the leap from the deck into the lifeboat. Polly in Nancy Mitford’s Love in a Cold Climate asks Boy to marry her – “I always knew that I should have to do the proposing, and I did” – but the less said about that marriage the better (never mind women proposing to men, who thinks marrying their lechy uncle is a great idea?).
Continue reading...
0 comments:
Post a Comment