Spinster World War prevented many within a generation of women from experiencing romance and marriage, or having children. The image of the old spinster with a fading photo of her dead World War I soldier boyfriend on her fireplace mantel was common in films of the 1950s and 1960s. Likewise, in the American classic novel "Gone with the Wind" (1936) about the Civil War, numerous references are made to grieving fiancées, women who were "wanted, if not wed", and to the shortage of single, able-bodied (and thus "marriageable") men at war's end. In modern peacetime societies with wide opportunities for romance,
Bachelor Bachelor A bachelor is a man who is socially regarded as able to marry, but has not yet. It is also the title of anyone of any gender or marital status who holds a bachelor's degree. The word is first attested as the 12th-century "bacheler", a knight bachelor, a knight too young or poor to gather vassals under his own banner. The Old French ' presumably derives from Provençal ' and Italian ', but the ultimate source of the word is uncertain. The proposed Medieval Latin *' ("vassal", "field hand") is only attested late enough that it may have derived