A Woman's Age in the Census - 1891.

March 21st this year was Census Day in ** England, Wales and Northern Ireland, so I just had to share this article I came across in a local newspaper - "The Kelso Chronicle" of 15th April 1891. 

"As a rule, men do not mind their real age being known and therefore they can scarcely appreciate what an awful ordeal the recent Census was for certain members of the softer sex. 

Girls in their teens and married women do not mind it much.  Young servant girls overrate their ages, with a tendency in the opposite direction once they pass five and twenty.

The women, however who are mostly averse to telling their ages are widows who hope to marry again, and maidens who have passed the first bloom of womenhood, who are, in fact, what is called in polite parlance "old young ladies". 

If their consciences are tough, when the Bogie Man,   that is the Census Man, comes round, they boldly lop off ten or fifteen years. 

 If their consciences are tender - a rare occurence - they will quit the neighbourhood where they are known and hide themselves in some big town.  

The worst of all these precautions is that they are of little use if the proverb be true that " a man is as old as the feels, but a woman is as old as she looks". 

The article must have been written by a man! 

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 Notes: 

** Scotland has deferred the 2021 census until next year, because of the Covid pandemic.

Silhouette Signatures is an idea  I came across  on Facebook genealogy pages, with Timothy J. Barron and Dana of The Genealogy Girl  introducing this concept of creating an image to illustrate an ancestor,  where  a photograph is not available.  

 

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