I honestly always find the term ‘spinster’ as referring to an elderly, never-married woman as funny because you know what?
Wool was a huge industry in Europe in the middle ages. It was hugely in demand, particularly broadcloth, and was a valuable trade good. A great deal of wool was owned by monasteries and landed gentry who owned the land.
And, well, the only way to spin wool into yarn to make broadcloth was by hand.
This was viewed as a feminine occupation, and below the dignity of the monks and male gentry that largely ran the trade.
So what did they do?
They hired women to spin it. And, turns out, this was a stable job that paid very well. Well enough that it was one of the few viable economic options considered ‘respectable’ outside of marriage for a woman. A spinster could earn quite a tidy salary for her art, and maintain full control over her own money, no husband required.
So, naturally, women who had little interest in marriage or men? Grabbed this opportunity with both hands and ran with it. Of course, most people didn’t get this, because All Women Want Is Husbands, Right?
So when people say ‘spinster’ as in ‘spinster aunt’, they are TRYING to conjure up an image of a little old lady who is lonely and bitter.
But what I HEAR are the smiles and laughter of a million women as they earned their own money in their own homes and controlled their own fortunes and lived life on their own terms, and damn what society expected of them.
I hope this a shit post cause that’s not even close to being true.
Please. I am very curious as to why you think I am incorrect.
I saw this spinster post and regretted not reblogging it, only to find this one that’s like ten times better with amazing sources and a hot’n’fresh moider for me ❤
You shoulda held back on reblogging ‘cause OP’s claims are rosier than the picture their sources paint of the lives of women hand-spinners.
Based on what OP posted, here’s what the sources say about spinsters:
Source 1: Mostly neutral, slightly positive on OP’s assertions.
While spinsters are mentioned, this is mostly about women doing agricultural work.
Lots of women worked as spinners: Based on a chart of workers charged with taking “:excessive wages”–i.e., charging more than the law allows for their labor–72% of women charged by the Justice of Labourers in Somerset worked in the cloth industry as spinners and weavers.
Women could negotiate for higher wages: There was a labor shortage following the Black Death, leading to more women being hired for traditionally male work. (Again, this source is mostly about women doing agricultural work.) Labor shortages, or higher demands for labor than supply of labor, allows for workers to demand higher wages.
Some independent, single women worked as spinners, but they lived in less than optimal conditions; they were regularly taken advantage of by the cloth merchants with whom they contracted; and they occasionally relied on sex work to supplement their income.
The book debunks the claim that women laborers delayed marriage on purpose. This source does not agree with OP that women spinners made enough to live well nor does it agree that they went unmarried by choice.
Very similar to Source 2, this hobbyist website also defines spinster and provides no sources for any information on the site. (There’s not much relevant info there anyway.)
“We have […] excluded observations that relate to domestic servants with managerial responsibility (housekeepers, ladies’ maids, nurses), ignoring also skilled domestic manufacturers (weavers, lacemakers, glovers) and midwives, schoolteachers and governesses.”
“[O]ur series exclude spinners’ wages as their computation on comparable terms raises specific problems…”
In the last section, spinner’s wages are discussed w/r/t their impact on industrialization in the cloth industry post-Middle Ages, so irrelevant. The writers of this paper disagree with the theory that spinsters earned high wages (writers contend that spinsters appeared to be badly paid) and those high wages encouraged mechanization of the spinner’s work.
Irrelevant to spinners, but I really liked this paper. Women laborers gained negotiating power in the post-Black Death labor shortage and used it in a way that pissed off men. Brava, ladies.
The abstract alone is damning, so this convinced me that OP did not read their own sources.
Text debunks theory that hand-spinners earned high wages, and that those high wages combined with the low production levels are what motivated the cloth industry to mechanize spinning.
Text concludes hand-spinning was low-wage, low-production work performed by women and children. Combination of perception as women’s work, laws that depressed wages, and lack of guilds to protect workers, spinners made very little money.
Does mention that becoming a spinner was colloquially thought of as decent wage-earning work for independent women, but the reality did not match the hype. <<<probably why “spinster” became slang for undesirable, never-married women; men fear independent women even when their independence is a farce
Again, great read. One of the writers of this paper also co-wrote Source 6: Jane Humphries.
Cannot read the paper without signing up for JStor, and I just don’t wanna.
TLDR; OP did not read their sources. I suspect they googled “independent spinsters medieval” and posted a bunch of stuff that is largely negative, irrelevant, or neutral on the question of whether spinsters were independent, financially stable women who chose not to marry.
EDIT: @attackfish did this already and i didn’t have to. how do i add a crying emoticon
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