# Do you have a "Spinster Aunt"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 17, 2011, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-spinster-aunt/593051 "2011-08-17T17:41:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![OneMissedPost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e7dd6/32.png) [@OneMissedPost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneMissedPost)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-spinster-aunt/593051/41 "2011-08-17T22:04:47Z")
No. ---
**Author:** ![Surly\_Chick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Surly\_Chick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surly_Chick)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-spinster-aunt/593051/42 "2011-08-17T22:07:27Z")
I add myself to the list of “I’m the spinster aunt.” I live alone in a big, scary, old house and travel the world by myself bringing back exotic presents. My nephews and niece adore me. I really should get some cats to round out the picture but I’m allergic. I have a dog although he’s not a tiny, annoying, yappy one. He’s a large, annoying, yappy one. ETA: I am not gay. Not that there’s anything wrong with that… ---
**Author:** ![ASanders](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asanders/32/3367_2.png) [@ASanders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASanders)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-spinster-aunt/593051/43 "2011-08-17T22:14:21Z")
I don’t but my kids do. She’s one of five kids in my BILs family and has never married. She’s a “career woman” in a traditional Italian family where such a characterization causes rolled eyes. We don’t know her well, but she seems cool enough. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-spinster-aunt/593051/44 "2011-08-17T22:50:39Z")
My grandfather had three older sisters, none of whom ever married. They all lived together in a little house until the last one living had to moved to a nursing home in her mid-90s. They all three hated cats, and none of them knitted at all. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-spinster-aunt/593051/45 "2011-08-18T00:06:21Z")
> [@Dogzilla](#): > > How do you know? Did she tell you? Why would she comment on that, one way or the other? What on earth would make you think that someone did not have sex with their live-in boyfriend? Did I mention the bat-fucking-shit insane part? Among other things, she will not allow people to touch her in any way for any reason, and is a germaphobe that makes Howard Hughes look like a hippie. Obviously, I don’t have a camera in their bedroom or anything, so my statement was speculation, but it’s not like I don’t have 35 years of experience watching her behavior on which to base that speculation. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-spinster-aunt/593051/46 "2011-08-18T01:16:23Z")
I have an aunt who’s never married, or had a bf in my living memory (I’m 33). She evidently had a bf _long_ ago, nothing recently. Until my grandmother’s (her mom) death, we were close, family issues surfaced, and we’ve be estranged for 7 years or so. ---
**Author:** ![kittenblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ba8739/32.png) [@kittenblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kittenblue)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-spinster-aunt/593051/47 "2011-08-18T02:27:12Z")
I had one…a step-aunt, technically. She’s passed now. At least, I think she has…really no way of knowing. She lived with her sister, my dad’s step-mom, and when Grandma Dot died, and Aunt Ruth called to let us know (quite a bit after the fact) she went off on a tirade about how she had had to take care of their parents while Dot went off and got married, and then when she was free of them she was “forced” to come and live with Dot and take care of her, while having her career, and now she was free of the lot of them, was retired, didn’t feel any ties to us and (I’m just remembering this as I type) was going to get married to a gentleman friend. And that’s the last we heard of her, to my recollection. I really should ask my mom if she ever got a Christmas card from her again. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-spinster-aunt/593051/48 "2011-08-18T03:55:47Z")
My only blood aunt was married with children, so no. ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-spinster-aunt/593051/49 "2011-08-18T03:57:34Z")
three. one career-type, two house-types. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-spinster-aunt/593051/50 "2011-08-18T03:58:06Z")
Nope. One of my father’s aunts was a spinster, but no cats and she lived with her brother. AFAIK, neither one was rumored to bat for the other team (I don’t think she had the imagination for it, actually). Dad also had a spinster great-aunt, but she lived with his family (that is, with her sister’s family), no cats and I think the whole family would have been terribly surprised if she had batted for the other team; she was happy bouncing along life and reading the Roman Martyrs to her grand-nephews at bedtime (as Dad used to say, “if gore stories turn you into a psychopath, my whole family would have gone on a rampage before Little Sis turned 12”). I’m a spinster and an aunt, but I bat for the usual side and no cats. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-spinster-aunt/593051/51 "2011-08-18T04:39:10Z")
I voted “no”… because they’ve been dead for several decades and they were my great-aunts (grandfather’s sisters). But neither ever married, and they lived together all their lives. I doubt they played for _any_ team - that Just Wasn’t Done (much) back in those days, especially a couple of devout Catholic girls. Interestingly, of that family of 7, only two married. Two others became nuns, and another became a priest. Odd. Gotta wonder about the family dynamics. ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-spinster-aunt/593051/52 "2011-08-18T04:43:14Z")
I have a nutty aunt with a heap of cats, but she was briefly married at one stage. I think. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-spinster-aunt/593051/53 "2011-08-18T07:05:04Z")
My mom’s sister. Never married, loves her cat, plays video games rather than knits. Sometimes Mom wonders aloud if my aunt might prefer the girls’ league, but I have trouble reconciling that with the tales of my aunt’s sluty past. I’m not sure why people decide you’re gay if you never marry, even if you slept around with the opposite sex to everyone’s knowledge and not with the same sex to anyone’s knowledge. People are weird. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-spinster-aunt/593051/54 "2011-08-18T07:22:47Z")
I had an uncle like that, but he figured out he was gay and now is pretty happy. ---
**Author:** ![thelabdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@thelabdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelabdude)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-spinster-aunt/593051/55 "2011-08-18T14:14:30Z")
I suspect this thread is being skewed, those having one being more likely to paticipate. I skipped over it last night, but decided maybe you needed my no vote. I don’t have a spinster aunt, but my parents did. I think it was much more common years ago. Partly what Walt Disney based his family structures on, Uncle Donald, Aunt Minnie… Both my grandmothers died in the great flu epidemic leaving them tied up helping raise their sisters’ kids. Later the Great Depression made marriage unaffordable to many. Many men felt they needed to wait until they could support a family. My mothers one aunt always said shenever married because she never found a man she wanted to wait on hand and foot. How old do you have to be before you become a spinster? When I was in highschool there were a couple of sisters we all _knew_ were going to be old maid librarians. Yes, they both become librarians. One of them tricked us and got married when she was 35. ---
**Author:** ![kittenblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ba8739/32.png) [@kittenblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kittenblue)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-spinster-aunt/593051/56 "2011-08-18T14:21:06Z")
The term we always used was “maiden aunt”, not spinster, for what it’s worth. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-spinster-aunt/593051/57 "2011-08-18T17:15:27Z")
Incidentally, I did have a spinster aunt, but she started out as my bachelor uncle. 😃 My aunt had a male-to-female sex reassignment surgery when I was 8. Never married, no kids, always had at least one cat, sexual orientation was never discussed; I never asked and have no idea. If she dated people as a she, then I never heard about it. Sadly, she passed away this spring from nursing home neglect. ☹ I will miss her. She was spooky smart, totally subversive, sarcastic and probably a bunch of other things that also start with “s”. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-spinster-aunt/593051/58 "2011-08-18T17:18:42Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > Did I mention the bat-fucking-shit insane part? Among other things, she will not allow people to touch her in any way for any reason, and is a germaphobe that makes Howard Hughes look like a hippie. > > Obviously, I don’t have a camera in their bedroom or anything, so my statement was speculation, but it’s not like I don’t have 35 years of experience watching her behavior on which to base that speculation. Wow. Interesting. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-spinster-aunt/593051/59 "2011-08-18T17:41:41Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > There’s a family archetype of the “spinster aunt” - that somewhat oddball sis of one of your parents who never dated much, prefers to live alone with her cats and knit more quilts, and is rumored to not exactly play for the regular team. > > Do you have one? My wife did. One of her father’s eight siblings was Aunt Alice, who lived her entire life with her parents, home nursed both of them in their extreme old age (both died in their 90’s), stayed in the same house until her early 90’s when Alzheimers finally forced her to spend her last three years with her sister. She was a doll. Lovable, very funny and fun-loving, and yes, she had one big eccentricity: she was a hoarder. House and garage piled ceiling high at times with boxes and piles of stuff. Couple of dogs, one cat. We all loved her. The family lore was that Alice had fallen in love only once, her guy was killed early on in WW2, and for whatever reasons no one ever took his place. . . ---
**Author:** ![Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/angel_of_the_lord/32/2949_2.png) [@Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angel_of_the_Lord)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-spinster-aunt/593051/60 "2011-08-18T17:45:38Z")
Nope. My mom has two brothers, no sisters. My dad’s an only child. Therefore, any aunts are by definition not spinster, as they’re married to one of my uncles. No spinster great-aunts, either, as far as I remember, though admittedly one or two of them passed away before I was born. All the ones I was aware of, though, had spouses and children, save for one great-aunt who was married but childless, likely due to health issues. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-spinster-aunt/593051.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-spinster-aunt/593051.md?page=4)