Spinster culture for centuries. They are the "aanissat" in Arabic, "spinsters" or "old maids" in English, "vieilles filles" in French, "zitelle" in Italian, "alte Jungfer" in German, or "dakhtar torsheedeh" in Persian. In Australia, parties are held for young single people to meet and socialize (particularly in the rural areas). These events are known as Bachelor and Spinster Balls or colloquially "B and S Balls". There is also a philanthropic group of women between the ages of 21 and 35, called the Spinsters of San Francisco, who organize events. By the 2010s, interest developed in this word as a form of
Spinster a television series. In Jane Austen's "Emma", the character Miss Bates is a spinster, and Austen (who never married) gives her stereotypical negative characteristics such as garrulousness. Bob Dylan's song "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" (1963) tells the true story of a murder at a spinsters' ball in Baltimore in 1963. Paul McCartney, while in the band the Beatles, composed the hit song "Eleanor Rigby" (1966) about the loneliness and death of a spinster (though he never used the term in the lyrics). The country song "Delta Dawn", made famous by Tanya Tucker, overviews the plight of a woman