morlock-holmes:

jadagul:

loki-zen:

jadagul:

necarion:

We have “bachelorette” as the female equivalent of “bachelor”, containing most of the same emotional valence.

What is the male equivalent of “spinster”, ie “a man past marriageable age with no prospects”? Spinstor? Spinstero?

I’m pretty sure the male equivalent of “spinster” is “bachelor”.

You can’t really have “bachelorette” and “spinster” in the same social context; they imply totally different things!

also the concept of ‘past marriageable age’, where it exists/existed, doesn’t exist for men, so there is no word for a man past marriageable age.

You are correct but also this is all correct:

togglesbloggle

Traditionally, there was no such thing as a man past marriageable age with no prospects, is the thing. You got “lifelong bachelor” sometimes but it didn’t really hit the same.

brighterflowers

i’ve heard “perpetual bachelor” or “old bachelor”

In that, like, men didn’t get “past marriageable age” but there were men that everyone decided, yep, he’s never gonna marry, huh. (Some of them were probably gay. Some of them were not.)

But they were just “confirmed old bachelors” or “lifelong bachelors” or something. It was the prolonging of the bachelor state, rather than a transition into a new state with a new word.

But also “bachelorette” seems to only date to around 1900, which is what I’d expect. Prior to that, men were bachelors, and women were maids and then spinsters.

“Perpetual Bachelor” was also a polite euphemism for “Homosexual” back in the day.

“Playboy” captured the sense of a man who didn’t marry because he had too many prospects to explore…