A key component of the Spinster Mythos is financial independence — or at least the appearance of it. It’s very difficult to be a spinster when you can’t afford to live on your own, when you depend upon the income or the goodwill of others. This is why so many fictional spinsters are as wealthy as they are eccentric: it’s their money that allows them to behave strangely. Without money, without a home of your own, society will find a way to be beat the strangeness out of you. (It will still try even if you do have money, but then you can build a door of pearl and of onyx to keep society away from your house.)

When I think of all the women — real and fictional — who simply could not afford to become spinsters throughout history, my heart aches. There should be a Spinster Dream Fund for women who need a small apartment overlooking a river or a cottage on stilts propped on the side of a mountain that is continually wrapped in fog.