A Woman Alone: The Depictions of Spinsters in Irish Women’s Short Stories

Abstract

Introduction This paper focuses on a group of female characters who have never been married and whose role within Irish society is, therefore, not defined by marriage or child rearing. In this paper we draw on perspectives of Irish female writers whose works cover, overall, entire second half of twentieth century-Mary Lavin in pre-1960's, Maeve Kelly, Emma Cooke, Clare Boylan, Jan Kennedy in 1970's and 80's, Mary Beckett, Angela Bourke and Claire Keegan in 1990's. Running through works of these writers is a core theme of generalised hostility within Irish society towards who, by choice or circumstance, have remained single. The stories by these writers return consistently to portrayals of force exerted upon by society to conform through self-sacrifice in a cultural environment which emphasises benefit of society in general at expense of women. These stories dissect ideology underlying and underpinning politics of gender roles and human interaction within Irish society. The stories achieve this goal by choosing themes and issues of alienation, internal exile and prejudice against spinsters, and setting these against a backdrop of an ideological manifestation of a as odd women stereotype as well as of a requirement for to conform to a role of selfless social mothers. The norm shaping into natural wives and mothers serves, in effect, as a means of control over (Mustard 2004 Spinster). (2) Representations of a negative image of single as spinsters in these stories indicate continuing marginalisation and discrimination which this distinctive (single women) group experiences as a result of falling outside of conventional enclosure in Ireland. The phenomenon in post-famine Ireland in which a growing number of stayed unmarried or permanently celibate is not unique in context of modern Western Europe. (3) Like other western European countries, Ireland also experienced rural depopulation. Given that Ireland was, and remains, a stronghold of belief that role of lay in domesticity and motherhood, a belief reinforced by rejection of birth control of any kind, it is worth noting that demographic patterns of population growth in Ireland since Great Famine up to 1960s remained much lower than in many other European countries. Partly, this demographic pattern may be due to the combined effects of large-scale emigration and lowest marriage rate in Europe (Murphy-Lawless 1993: 53). (4) The feasibility of attaining married status for Irish men and may also have been limited in many respects by practical factors and available economic options. The tightening economic conditions resulted in a gradual change in system of land inheritance amongst rural farmers. Typically, only eldest son could inherit his father's land and therefore only eldest son would have been in a practical position to marry and raise a family of his own. As a result, younger siblings either had to stay single or leave, or possibly both (Clarkson 1981: 237-55; Strassmann and Clark 1998: 38). At that time, many single left country to escape poverty and perhaps also pressure resulting from their continuing single status (Horgan 2001 Women's Lives). The 1937 Constitution emphasises that primary role of in Irish society was that of wife and mother, a reflection of a dominant view that the family was a moral institution, possessing inalienable and imprescriptible rights (Murphy-Lawless 1993: 54). Marriage in general becomes norm, or default option, for inasmuch as are largely defined in Irish society by roles and duties in which they engage within enclosure of marriage. Even today, identities of Irish continue to be constructed in domestic arena of marriage and motherhood despite Ireland's economic modernisation as a member of European Community, a theoretical availability of greater choice to through access to higher education, and impact of women's movements (Byrne 2008: 19). …