It was in the 5th century when St. Brigid of Kildare brought a problem of inequality to the attention of St. Patrick, who may not have particularly cared. Brigid’s complaint was on behalf of all the single ladies who kept waiting and waiting and waiting for a man to propose marriage.

It’s also said that St. Brigid once prayed for God to make her less beautiful just so she wouldn’t be pressured to marry, so the St. Patrick proposal stories may be a little off brand. Glaaaastonbury88, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

St Patrick set down his shamrock, swallowed the last of his green beer, rolled his eyes, and graciously suggested that every four years (except in years divisible by 100, but not by 400), when February 29th rolled around, it was okay with him if the womenfolk wanted to go ahead and propose to the men.

In one version of the story, a thankful St. Brigid immediately dropped to one knee and proposed to St. Patrick, but he was too busy driving the snakes out of Ireland to notice. Also the lives of Brigid and Patrick didn’t overlap that much, making her maybe five years old when this event allegedly took place and him not more than a few years from the end of his life. The story, either version, is a bit dubious.

But the strange tale got even stranger when in the year 1288 Irish monks brought the tradition to Scotland where Queen Margaret cemented into law that if a woman proposed marriage to a man on February 29th then he’d better either say yes or compensate her for her disappointment with a pretty silk dress or a nice new pair of gloves. That just sounds to me like a great way to get a free dress and gloves.

I could always use a nice new pair of gloves.
Image by 378322 from Pixabay

Of course Queen Margaret was at most only five years old when the law would have been written and there’s no record of any such law having ever existed. But regardless of where the tradition of women proposing marriage to men on leap day might have come from, there’s no question that the notion has been around for a long time in western culture.

The tradition showed up in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries where it mostly became the subject of ridicule. Today of course it feels a little silly because women in western cultures have more agency than ever and incidences of proposals from women to men are on the rise at any time of year.

I’ll really be spending my leap day preparing for the launch of my new historical mystery in just seven weeks. Watch this space next week for the full cover reveal.

Still, it feels like this strange day that has been popping up on our calendars more or less every four years, with only a few necessary tweaks, since 46 BC should be marked as special in some way. If nothing else, it feels like a stolen extra day and I for one want to make the most of it.

As a woman who has been happily married for going on twenty-four years now, it would probably be pretty inappropriate for me to propose marriage to anyone, but I guess I wouldn’t say no to a pretty silk dress or a nice new pair of gloves. I’ll just have to shop for them myself.

What are you doing with your extra February day?