Dating, Love & Relationships Around The World

Leap Year Should Ladies Propose Marriage Using Their Ladies Privilege

May 3rd, 2008 by GiGi

Due to the complexities of our calendar, every year whose number is cleanly divisible by four is a leap year, and we give it an extra day tacked onto its February. Thus we get February 29th every 4 years. As always, some idiot decided to there should be exceptions in order to keep the general population more confused.

If we get a full century this year must be divisible by 400; if not, then it is not a leap year but a common year. Following me so far? This exception means that the year 2000 was a leap year but the year 1900 was not. Since none of us will be around to worry that the year 3000 will not be a leap year …. I’ll just move on.

Leap years, according to folk tradition, were the only times when women could propose marriage to men, with this belief often termed “The Ladies’ Privilege.” The question here - does this mean the entire year or just February 29th?

The origins of “The Ladies’ Privilege” are not definitively known, but one posited beginning set in Ireland had St. Bridget complaining to St. Patrick about women not being able to ask the men they fancied to marry them. According to the folktale, he offered the opportunity at a seven-year interval, and she bargained him down to four.

Back in the day, relations between the men and women were far more formal and scripted, with each gender being expected to adhere to its assigned roles. When it came to proposing marriage, men did the asking and women did the accepting or declining — the other way around would have been unthinkable.

The U.S. has its own “women can pursue men” holiday: Sadie Hawkins Day. This day was named for a man-chasing female character in the Al Capp cartoon strip Li’l Abner, whose father decreed an annual footrace in her name (with the spinsters chasing the unhitched males of the town and getting to marry any they caught). Sadie Hawkins day gives women the right to propose marriage to unmarried men, or at least to ask them out. Though there is no set day for this holiday, many communities celebrate it in November, some deeming it to be the Saturday closest to November 9. Additionally, some high schools will designate one dance a year as a “Sadie Hawkins” event, meaning girls are expected to ask guys to be their dates for that event, not the other way around.

Perhaps the last word on the subject of who should offer marriage to whom goes to the much-wed Zsa Zsa Gabor, who proposed to every one of her nine husbands. “A woman has to make up a man’s mind,” she said.