Marriage certificate no further details given. On 5 September 2005, the Registrar General in England and Wales officially abolished the traditional terms of "bachelor" and "spinster" and substituted the more politically correct "single" to coincide with the reform that introduced civil partnerships, explaining, "The word single will be used to mean a couple who has never been through a marriage or civil partnership." Unlike birth and death registrations, the local (church) copies of marriage registers for churches are treated as ecclesiastical records and thus are deposited in diocesan record offices or county record offices (often but not always the same office) when
Spinster this sense "is ... perceived as insulting. It implies negative qualities such as being fussy or undesirable". Also included is a sense of the word used specifically in a legal context: "a woman who has never married". Wordreference.com describes the "woman still unmarried" sense of 'spinster' as "dated". Age is a crucial part of the definition, according to Robin Lakoff's explanation in "Language and Woman's Place". "If someone is a spinster, by implication she is not eligible [to marry]; she has had her chance, and been passed by". "Hence, a girl of twenty cannot be properly called a spinster: she