Olde Crone
13-06-23, 11:42
I'm reading an interesting book about the "surplus" women, those who would never marry because of the lack of men after the first world war.
The 1921 census showed there were nearly 2 million unmarried women more than unmarried men. There was also a worry that the statisticians had "lost" nearly a million men since the 1911 census, over and above those killed in the Great War (about 700,000), although those "lost" men could probably be accounted for by those who had emigrated or were otherwise working abroad.
Of course I knew about the surplus women, both generally and personally, but this book does bring it right home. Something I didn't know about was the widely held contempt felt for these women particularly by men, lol, all the criticisers believing the women had chosen to stay single for "unnatural reasons".
I had a collection of Victorian "aunties" ( great aunts and great great aunts) most of whom never married because there weren't enough men to go round. Even as a child I pitied them, seeing them as somehow lesser, for reasons I couldn't have articulated. I am ashamed of myself. They were good, competent women who made the best of a bad job and never complained as far as I know. All worked at menial jobs because they hadn't been educated for work, just for being a wife and mother.
An interesting and thought-provoking book.
OC
The 1921 census showed there were nearly 2 million unmarried women more than unmarried men. There was also a worry that the statisticians had "lost" nearly a million men since the 1911 census, over and above those killed in the Great War (about 700,000), although those "lost" men could probably be accounted for by those who had emigrated or were otherwise working abroad.
Of course I knew about the surplus women, both generally and personally, but this book does bring it right home. Something I didn't know about was the widely held contempt felt for these women particularly by men, lol, all the criticisers believing the women had chosen to stay single for "unnatural reasons".
I had a collection of Victorian "aunties" ( great aunts and great great aunts) most of whom never married because there weren't enough men to go round. Even as a child I pitied them, seeing them as somehow lesser, for reasons I couldn't have articulated. I am ashamed of myself. They were good, competent women who made the best of a bad job and never complained as far as I know. All worked at menial jobs because they hadn't been educated for work, just for being a wife and mother.
An interesting and thought-provoking book.
OC