Get excited Spinster, the patriotic, good-teeth having man of your dreams is looking to make you his wife. Well, if this were 1865.
The personal ads have also been a place where you could find a few laughs… people are weird. But looking back to what people found desirable in a mate back in 1865 is even weirder.
University of Oxford Researcher Max Roser recently posted a piece of a dating ad that was published in an 1865 newspaper.
His post has now gone viral with more than 6,000 retweets and 15,000 likes. The ad is titled “Chance for a Spinster.” I bet the ladies came running with that line. Apparently, calling a woman a spinster wasn’t as insulting as it is now.
Looking for a wife in 1865 pic.twitter.com/5YWWag7isA
— Max Roser (@MaxCRoser) June 19, 2017
The man posting the ad was young to be looking for a wife by today’s standards. But at 18-year-old in 1865, he was becoming a spinster himself. This man was a patriot, who believed in his president and the Fourth of July.
He is a hard worker, having plowed 18 acres with a year and seeding 10 of it, and his crops are proof!
When it comes to a woman, he wants one who eats bread and butter and wears hoop-skirts. He blatantly professes that his one flaw is that he has NO idea how to court a woman.
Well no one’s perfect.
Here’s the post in its entirety:
“Chance For A Spinster — A young man in Aroostook County, Maine, advertising for a wife speaks of himself as follows: ‘I am eighteen years old, have a good set of teeth, and believe in Andy Johnson, the Star Spangled Banner, and the 4th of July. I have taken up a State lot, cleared up eighteen acres last year, and seeded ten of it down. My buckwheat looks first-rate, and the oats and potatoes are bully. I have got nine sheep, a two-year-old bull, and two heifers besides a house and a barn. I want to get married. I want to buy bread-and-butter, hoop-skirts, and waterfalls for some person of the female persuasion during life. That’s what’s the matter with me. But I don’t know how to do it.”
People on Twitter got a kick out of the post.
“…bread and butter, hoop skirts and waterfalls…” This man was a true romantic. I hope he found someone who loved him.
— Lorien Shaw (@Glaxona) June 19, 2017
Honestly, if someone wanted to feed be bread and butter and buy me hoop skirts, I would totally date them. Doesn’t seem like too bad of a deal.
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