Spinster tags "spinster" (meaning "...unmarried woman, typically an older woman beyond the usual age for marriage") as "derogatory" and "a good example of the way in which a word acquires strong connotations to the extent that it can no longer be used in a neutral sense." The 1828 and 1913 editions of "Merriam Webster's Dictionary" defined spinster in two ways: "1. A woman who spins, or whose occupation is to spin. 2. Law: An unmarried or single woman." By the 1800s, the term had evolved to include women who chose not to marry. During that century middle-class spinsters, as well as
The Spinster and Her Enemies The Women's Forum". "The Spinster and Her Enemies" received positive reviews from the biographer Phyllis Grosskurth in "The Times Literary Supplement", the historian Lillian Faderman in the "American Journal of Sociology", and Penny Summerfield in "Victorian Studies". The book was also reviewed by Anne Summers in "Sociology of Health & Illness", Judith Wishnia in "Contemporary Sociology", the historian Marilyn Lake in "Signs", and Ruth Doell in the "Journal of Homosexuality", and discussed by Margaret Hunt in "Feminist Review". Grosskurth, writing in 1986, called "The Spinster and Her Enemies" one of the best studies on the "struggle of women in history"