Bachelor under discussion. Also in the Victorian era, the term "confirmed bachelor" denoted a man who was resolute to remain unmarried. By the later 19th century, the term "bachelor" had acquired the general sense of "unmarried man". The expression bachelor party is recorded 1882. In 1895, a feminine equivalent "bachelor-girl" was coined, replaced in US English by "bachelorette" by the mid-1930s. After World War II, this terminology came to be seen as antiquated and has been mostly replaced by the gender-neutral term "single" (first recorded 1964). In England and Wales, the term "bachelor" remained the official term used for the purpose
Eligible bachelor as an "eligible bachelor" chooses to be a bachelor, whereas an "eligible spinster" does not have a choice. Lakoff believes this use of language fosters, and grows from, sexual discrimination. Lakoff states "women are given their identity in our society by virtue of their relationship with men, and not vice versa." Another set of criteria that purports to determine a man's desirability to women is the "666 dating rule" or "rule of sixes", which are a set of minimum male qualities centred around the number six, namely a six feet height, a six-hundred horsepower car, six-pack abs, a six-inch penis,