Sheng nu cites studies that show that women are now breaking the tradition of "mandatory marriage" to have fewer children or marry later on in life. Other typologically similar terms that are still used in the modern lexicon of other countries and cultures show the concept has existed in some cases as far back as the 16th century. The term spinster was used to describe unmarried or single women of a marriageable age. It wasn't until 2004 when the Civil Partnership Act replaced the word spinster with "single" in the relationship history section of marriage certificates in the UK. Subsequently, at the
Spinster defrauded and abandoned on her wedding day; an event that shaped the rest of her life, and by extension, those around her. Another stereotype of the spinster that has appeared in literature is the quick-witted and sometimes quick-tempered independent woman, who has remained unmarried by choice, as in "Spinster Thurber's Carpet" (1897), Pauline Phelps's popular short story and play about an unmarried woman who decides during the Revolutionary War that she'd rather have a carpet than a husband. The popular and shrewdly intelligent detective Miss Marple was a spinster heroine in Agatha Christie's series of crime novels, which later became