Leap Day

Pope Gregory XIII, 1502 – 1585

Which is notable mostly because it simply is. We only get them, and don't notice them much, every four years.  Other than teasing people born on the day and miscalculating their actual age, not much will occur.

The added day, of course, come about due to the calendar adjustment that went into effect with the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar in October 1582. The added day was to keep the calendar from getting increasingly inaccurate.  The entire Christian world didn't adopt the new calendar all at once, in part due to the Great Schism and the start of the Protestant Reformation, but over time, it's taken over nearly completely for the entire globe.  About the only remaining use of the prior Julian Calendar is in some parts of the Eastern Orthodox world for their liturgical calendar, and even that is no longer universally true.

Pope Gregory actually met with a lot of opposition to the new calendar, FWIW.  Members of the general public were really upset at first.  Spain, Portugal, Poland-Lithuania and the Italian states nonetheless adopted it nearly immediately.  France, some of the Dutch Republic, and the Catholic states of the Holy Roman Empire and Swiss Confederation did in 1587.

Denmark and Norway, then one state, and the rest of the Dutch Republic didn't fall into line until 1700-1701, by which time the Julian Calendar was seriously out of whack.  The UK didn't adopt it until 1752.  Sweden came around in 1753.

You would think a day as odd as Leap Day would be associated with some interesting customs, and it actually is, or more accurately was.  In Wyoming, there once was a custom of appointing a teenager to be Governor for the day, honorific of course.  I don't think that occurs anymore, but I guess we'll see today.  If this does occur, I have not taken note of it recently.   Wyoming Public Media reported it has having occured as recently as 1940, FWIW.

One political thing that does happen is the U.S. Presidential Election.  It's always in a Leap Year. . . so we get to enjoy one more extra day of campaigning.

A tradition in the English-speaking world is that women can propose to men on this day, which, in some versions of the custom, extends to the whole year. This tradition was surprisingly wide spread in societies speaking English, and is attributed by some to the Irish Saint, St. Brigid, who predates the Gregorian Calendar by quite some measure.   She died in 525.

Anyhow, supposedly she licensed women to propose to men every four years, which is likely just a story.

"Taking" a person, then, was a much more serious matter, even though it should be equally serious now.

Even when I was a kid, however, there remained the odd custom, apparently limited to English-speaking countries as noted, that in Leap Years girls could "ask out" a boy, it being implicit that otherwise that was a right/burden that fell to males.  It still, in fact, largely does.  This appears to have been the remnant of a custom in English-speaking countries, no doubt only lightly observed, that on Leap Day, this day, women could propose marriage to men, that also being a prerogative which then, and largely now, was reserved to men by custom.

Frankly, this is vaguely threatening.

How much of a deal this really was, I don't know, but it was enough of one that late in the 19th Century and early in the 20th Century it generated cartoons, not all of which were kind, and it generated cards, most of which were, although more than a few of them were somewhat aggressive. The cards suggest that women were using them, so in fact some women did avail themselves of the licensed role reversal and propose.

Less threatening.

As odd as this may seem now, it may have made some sense at the time.  Another thread we have in draft deals with the economics, in part, of marriage in the age, but things were, quite frankly, tighter.  As that thread reveals, a lot more men went through life unmarried than do now, and far more than we might suspect.  More than a little of that was probably economic hesitation.  For women, however, unlike men, being unmarried was a societal strike against them and often a personal lifelong disaster.  If they were waiting for a proposal, this was a societally licensed way to deliver it.

Whatever was going on with this, it seems to have flat out ended in its original form right about the era of the cards we see here.  What happened?

I don't know, but what I suspect is that World War One dramatically altered the marriage landscape.  Indeed, we dealt with this briefly in regard to Catherinettes;

In France, for St. Catherine's saint's day, the Catherinettes were out on the streets:

From John Blackwell's Twitter feed on the topic.

We noted this custom in 2020:

The day is also St. Catherine's Day,, the feast day for that saint, which at the time was still celebrated in France as a day for unmarried women who had obtained twenty-five years of age.  Such women were known as Catherinettes. Women in general were committed since the Middle Ages to the protection of St. Catherine and on this day large crowds of unmarried 25 year old women wearing hats to mark their 25th year would gather for a celebration of sorts, where well wishers would wish them a speedy end to their single status. The custom remained strong at least until the 1930s but has since died out.

We should also note that the plight of unmarried French women, and British ones as well (and probably German ones) had grown worse since 1914.  Due to the combat losses of young men in the Great War, their marriage prospects in an era when being an unmarried woman was somewhat grim, had greatly declined.  The youngest of these women had been 21 when the war ended, meaning that they were of marriageable age when most young men were fighting in the war.  As the war killed men in that demographic, it meant that some would never marry.  The war also meant that the surviving men had disproportionate options.

I'm sure there's a study of this somewhere, but it can't help be noted that it must have had long-lasting social impacts, and it probably also explains the significant number of "war brides" brought home from France by US servicemen after the war and occupation, as well as the same population brining home some German brides, and Russian brides.

This of course is from a different culture yet, the French, but it addresses the same topic, with the French taking it up annually, and more cheerfully it looks like.

This custom apparently has largely died, but interestingly milliners are trying to revive it, as it was associated with outlandish hats.  Having said that, French single women over 25 were still out on the streets with wild costumes and hats in honor of the day, whereas the somewhat maudlin English Leap Day cards don't seem to have made it past World War one.  It's hard not to draw that line in the case of the Leap Day cards.  1916 was a Leap Year, and then 1920.  By 1920 there were a lot of single women in English-speaking countries (and in France too) who were going to be single for life, the war having made that a fact.

Before we leave this topic, it's interesting to note that in Medieval Times, after the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar, in some European countries this was Bachelor's Day for the same reason. I.e., Bachelors were subject to proposals.  It actually was a matter of law in some countries.  In some places it became the custom for men of means to be required to buy any suitor whose proposal he turned down twelve pairs of gloves so that she could hide her embarrassment at not having an engagement ring.

While on this, FWIW, as we've noted before, while spinster status was regarded as a disaster earl in the 20th Century, what exactly constituted it is misunderstood. As we have noted in another thread:

The median age for women was 21.6 in 1910. The same year, the median age for men was 25.1.

At the time the author wrote this entry, 2010, the median age for women was 25.0.  The median age for men was 26.7.  Data suggested that it had crept up a little over 1.7 years for women and 1.3 years for men.

Okay, that is a difference, but is that what you were expecting?

I doubt it, unless you are quite familiar with these statistics.

So, over century, the average age for "first marriages" has gone up a little under four years for women, and a little over 1.5 years for men.  Not that much of a climb.

That deals with the averages, of course.  Looking at my own grandparents, I think one set was married in their late 20s or early 30s, while another in their early 20s.  My parents were in their 30s.

Related Threads:

Of interest, I note that some other blogs we link into this site also noted Leap Day or Leap Year, with some noting the same items we noted above.

Leap Year

Leap Year Once Viewed as Opportunity for Women

Shockingly young! Surprisingly old! Too young, too old! Well, nothing much actually changing at all. . . Marriage ages then. . . and now. . and what does it all mean?