This is one of those Google happenstances.
I was searching for a post about the Met Office getting their forecasts wrong, using the search terms Met Office Matilda & I got a classic article from the Daily Mail – Does every Miss secretly wish she were a Mrs?
The story starts with Abigail who doesn’t have a wedding ring on the third finger of her left hand and who loves curling up on the sofa with her cat MATILDA at the end of a busy day at work. The OFFICE for National Statistics recently produced figures which show that she is far from being alone - in the past 30 years the number of unmarried women in the UK has doubled.
Psychotherapist Paula Hall is quoted as saying that she has "MET several women recently who’ve told me they won’t wear their engagement ring to work because it might give out the message that they’re only really interested in marriage and babies"
Such an provocative story to get out of boring statistics.
The title of the piece says a lot however; surely only a Daily Mail sub editor could think that we have any misses over the age of 10 these days – aren't they are all Ms’s.
Another intriguing change in the language of relationships is in the use of the word single. This no longer denotes ‘never married’ but merely what we used to call breaking up with a boyfriend. Instead of serial monogamy, these days we have serial singledom – at the age of 27 Abigail has been single for only two years.
Personally I can’t wait for the 2011 Census results to find out if The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea is still the national capital for single women, or whether they have all been driven out by the massive increase in the price of property in the borough.
