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;
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:
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.
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