Saying Goodbye To The Bachelor Life
Ahhh, the Bachelor Life!
BACH·e·LOR … A man who is not and has never been married.
That is me. Or, was me. I’m on my last 24 hours of freedom.
In the Victorian era, the term eligible bachelor was used to denote a young man who was not only unmarried and eligible for marriage, but also considered “eligible” in financial and social terms for the prospective bride under discussion.
Also in the Victorian era, the term “confirmed bachelor” denoted a man who was resolute to remain unmarried.
The word is first attested as the 12th-century bacheler, a knight bachelor, a knight too young or poor to gather vassals under his own banner.
By the later 19th century, the term “bachelor” had acquired the general sense of “unmarried man”. The expression bachelor party is recorded 1882.
After World War II, this terminology came to be seen as antiquated and has been mostly replaced by the gender-neutral term “single.”
Bachelors have been subject to penal laws in many countries, most notably in Sparta and Rome. At Sparta, men unmarried after a certain age were subject to various penalties.
Bachelors were forbidden to watch women’s gymnastics; during the winter, they were made to march naked through the agora singing a song about their dishonor.
Goodbye Bachelor Life! It was a good long run ….
