“Hurrah for Leap Year and Leap Year’s Code which makes bachelors and old maids no longer the mode: carry the good news to our mothers, sisters and aunts, get the man of your choice and then wear the pants”
As Leap Year custom and tradition dictate, young maids and old crones can on February 29 fulfil their life’s dream and propose marriage to a man. These cards from the Victorian age portray the single lady’s goal, often as a form of entrapment in which the hapless feller is tricked into holy matrimony. Occasionally, the lad is ready and willing to be pricked by an arrow fired from Eros’s bow and lavished in love.
‘Cheer up Old Man, Be Game, Tis Leap year and perhaps some dame might Pop and make you change her name’ – vintage Leap Year card
Man Seated on Woman’s Lap, Leap Year, Postcard, circa 1912
Gibson: Bathing, 1892. Charles Dana Gibson (1867-1944). American Illustrator. ‘In Leap Year. The Reluctant Men Are Coaxed Into The Breakers.’ Pen And Ink Drawing.
Leap Year – or Love in Plenty.
The Lasses now so Young & Gay,
All Round me come a hopping O!
Happy hours have skipped away
When in comes Leap Year popping O!I thought to lead a single Life,
And range the Town at large,
But Gad they’ll make me take a Wife,
A heavy, heavy, charge.Publish’d 24.March.1800. by Laurie &l Whittle., 53 Fleet Street, London.(via Victoria Treasury)
Couple Hugging Next to Stone Wall, Leap Year, Postcard, circa 1912
C96D65 Leap Year postcard from Victorian times
AMR44T Leap year comic postcard by Fred Spurgin 1912. Image shot 1912. Exact date unknown.
HKXP5F The perils of leap year. Use Corticelli, the best silk.
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