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
The Spinster and Her Enemies feminism hostile to sexual freedom. Jeffreys discusses the change in sexual attitudes that occurred in Britain between 1880 and 1930 from a feminist perspective, criticizing the idea that "the sexual puritanism of Victorian England gave way to the first sexual revolution of the twentieth century." She examines feminist involvement in the social purity movement in the 1880s and 1890s. She also discusses the physician Havelock Ellis, the poet Edward Carpenter, the psychiatrist Iwan Bloch, and the neuroanatomist Auguste Forel. "The Spinster and Her Enemies" was first published in 1985 by Pandora Press. "The Spinster and Her Enemies" received a positive