Ever wonder where the word “Spinster” comes from?
It refers to those who spin and weave. In its earliest usage in medieval England, “spinster” described a profession, as did “weaver,” “taylor,” and so on.
As the bureaucracy of society expanded and the need for formal surnames emerged, informal designations such as “Joseph the tailor” morphed into Joseph Taylor. Patriarchy dictated that a family would all take the name of the father and his profession. The many spinning and weaving women of England were all “spinsters” at the time, though the bureaucratic record of patriarchy obscured every spinner but the unmarried ones. Mary the spinster, married to Joseph the tailor, would be recorded as Mary, wife of Joseph Taylor; while Mary the spinster, living without a spouse, would be known as Mary Spinster.
Thus the Spinsters popping up on record throughout the English countryside became synonymous with women who were recognized for their trade rather than their marital status.
You know who was a spinster? Mary of Nazareth. That’s right. According to the Protoevangelium of James -- stories of Mary’s early life that were popular throughout the ancient Near East but didn’t make it into our Bible -- Mary and Elizabeth were both members of an elite guild of Hebrew spinners and weavers. According to the gospel tale as told by James, the annunciation happened while Mary was spinning. [To read for yourself, scroll to chapters 10:2-12:3].
What are you spinning, today, in your work and in your life?
What are we humans collectively spinning in 2021? What comes through us when we work our craft, engage our creativity, and spin the raw materials of our lives?
I have a friend -- a person of faith and brilliant professor -- who has discovered this forgotten spiritual power. She has been praying to Mary lately. Not the Virgin Mary, or Holy Mother Mary, but Mary, Spinner of Yarn. The threads of my friend’s work life, her spiritual life and her relationships are coming together in new and remarkable ways.
I have a friend -- I call her my “sister mother” because our apartments are down the hall from each other and our families are so interwoven -- who is spinning her gifts as a costume designer, her clarity of organizational thinking, and her passion for labor justice into a career path that is uniquely her own.
I have a friend -- a doctor working throughout the pandemic at a family clinic -- who spends her “spare time” caring for her mother and working on a start-up called “Community of Peace” in rural Virginia.
That energy, that productivity, that magic -- that is the power of Spinster.
It has nothing to do with our marital status, and it has everything to do with casting off patriarchy.
Do you see how insidious the tricks of patriarchy can be? Spinster -- a term that emerged from a woman’s essential and creative work in the world and that shows that she was not defined by her marital status -- gets co-opted to define that same woman according to her marital status. It attempts to erase the power of the woman-who-spins, and replace it with a stigma. Even worse: it divides women from each other, sowing seeds of envy, separating us by marital status, instead of knitting us together.
So let’s celebrate the Spinster. Let’s be the Spinster! How? By asking ourselves, “What am I spinning?” “What magic threads am I refining as I work?” “How might my actions today weave themselves into the web of world peace?”
Spin, sisters, spin!