Being a single woman isn’t the social taboo it once was. Singlehood seems to be on the rise, with more single person households, and more women choosing to marry later in life, or not at all.

It could even be viewed as trendy, among growing online movements to boycott dating apps and go “boy sober”. So is the stigma attached to being a single woman well and truly gone? My latest research suggests not.

I studied two women’s experience of singlehood over the course of 17 years, from their late teens to their mid-30s. Both Gabriella and Suzy (pseudonyms) spent long periods of their adult lives unpartnered, and their experiences show how the identity of a “single woman” still carries a negative stigma that’s hard to shake.

‘I feel that others see me as a spinster’

The stigma of being a single woman dates back to the 17th century. It was around this time the term “spinster” – originally used to describe women who worked in textile spinning – was widely adapted to describe unmarried women.

Spinsters were seen as a problem in the patriarchal society of the time. Known as “feme sole” in English common law, they had many of the same legal rights as men, including the ability to own property, whereas married women did not. They also defied the idea that a woman’s worth lay only in her value as a wife.

Nonetheless, spinsters who weren’t from wealthy families were at an economic disadvantage and often restricted to lower income occupations. Even those........

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