Never Married: Singlewomen in Early Modern England

by Amy M. Froide

This is the first book of original research on the women who never married in early modern England. Amy Froide looks at how singlewomen's lives differed from those of wives and widows, at the social relationships of women without husbands, and at how these women supported themselves. She also examines the economic and civic contributions singlewomen made to urban life and explores the English origins of the spinster and old maid stereotype.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Medieval, Academic

256 pages, Hardcover

First published February 24, 2005

Reviews

[Katheryn Thompson]

I can finally cross this one off my to-read list. Never Married: Singlewomen in Early Modern England does, more or less, what it says on the tin. Froide provides details of the numbers of singlewomen in various provincial towns (London's exceptional status meaning that it is not a focus of this book) throughout the early modern period, how they might have lived, how they were viewed by their contemporaries and by themselves, and some of the possible reasons why they never married. It's an interesting and informative read that can't cover everything, but is (at least) a good place to start.

[Dinah]

Nicely pulls together a variety of evidence to create a view into this distinct and problematic social category. Unfortunately not thorough in identifying the dates or even century of many examples, making it more difficult to comb Elizabethan evidence apart from later early modern evidence cited.