pressing fear that they themselves will be left behind…From such an individual then develops the embittered, jealous, malicious, in a word, unbearable Alte Jungfer, of whom it is doubtful whether she makes her own or other's lives more miserable.”45 Even this sympathetic portrayal concedes the misery that is spread by such a harpy. Another account describes the solitary woman as an increasingly angry figure: “Through the habits of intellectual stagnation she becomes petty and bitter, she scatters her stubborn narrow-mindedness and inconsistency, making her environment contentious and stultifying [and] giving the designation ‘Alte Jungfer its sinister timbre.”46
Embittered, the unmarried woman spreads bitterness; unloved, she is only capable of hate. The model of the shrew is the most prominent among the various lampoons of the spinster. The image fueled charges that the only true destiny for the female sex was marriage and motherhood. The following 1873 analysis of the Frauenfrage sums up the attributes of this most unfortunate female:
There is an army of deformities and abnormalities which develop into peculiarities and by which one can precisely designate the altjungfräulich… Sharp, surly criticism of the passions of youth which one can no longer enjoy; condemnatory envy which cannot look joyfully on the happiness of others . sorrowful satisfaction when someone married encounters misfortune; generally loveless behavior toward others; eavesdropping curiosity and a gossipy desire to report something ‘new’; pushy interference into the affairs of others;…pedantic emphasis on dull, meaningless things and adherence to order.47
Yet the same text also renders a profile of the shrew's opposite: the foolish romantic, a figure who exhibited “neglect of all order and unreliability in all affairs; ridiculous affection for particular loved ones, even animals; . oversensitivity [and] tears at the slightest cause, and then further self-satisfied tears over those tears;…repulsive excesses in the desire to please the palate; and more of the same sad things.”48
While neither of these parodies likely made for good company, both figures suffered from the ill effects of life without marriage. These two stereotypes existed in a dialectic—one cold and critical, the other excessive and emotional. What accounts for the stark differences between the two ridiculed figures? Both of these clichéd illustrations were based upon the experience of forsaken hope. But while one stereotype responds with bitterness, the second model of the old maid reacts to her fate with remarkable denial, her hopes still painfully intact, forever expectant of a transformation and forever unfulfilled.
This fanciful figure is more pitiable than the ruthless and angry shrew, for anger might at least serve as an outlet for pain. But the expectant romantic lives in a condition of denial. Never reconciled to her fate and never attempting to readjust, this fanciful figure exists as if frozen in time, waiting for her prince to come. This version of alte Jungfer is obsessed with remaining young and is therefore immediately recognizable.
Because she does not want to allow herself to become old, she desperately attempts to pass as a Backfisch by wearing coquettish hats, light dresses with stripes and polka-dots, [and] ribbons in the hair in order to carry and polish herself like a lass of seventeen or eighteen years. Her behavior also remains naïve, she blushes and bats her eyes bashfully low if a young man speaks to her, and if any more or less natural topic is discussed in society, she will act as if she believed in the “Tales of the Stork,” she laughs loudly where it is entirely inappropriate, behaves childishly, . endlessly thinks all young men are courting her and are in love with her, so that she finally is a comic figure. The poor foolish thing is laughed at by all sides.49
An element of craving might be added to the parody, pointing out “a perennially coy teenage smile…yearning gazes of desire toward gentlemen…suits of bright and garish colors…These and other similar effusions of unsatisfied longing form her repertoire.”50
This romantic is indeed hopeless. Her myopic vision and evidently low self-esteem encouraged condemnation of the unmarried as a whole—if the women themselves could not move beyond a belief in fairytale endings, why ought society to help them? The extreme nature of the depictions made the single woman alternatively an object of humor, disdain, mockery, pity, and condemnation. The more extraordinary the lampoon, the less seriously any calls for reform could be taken. And, paradoxically, the more difficult and intractable the plight of unmarried women became.
Not all representations mocked as meanly as those just described. Adelheid Weber's image of the addled romantic described a gentle woman who kept any hopes quietly to herself while working for her family: “Small, fine, with intimidated eyes and a smile always asking for forgiveness, [she was] the drudge mule of the family who did everything no one else liked to do…who had a thousand duties but none of them great, precise, or liberating…and from all she implored forgiveness for her worthless existence with her entire being.”51 Weber evoked a kind, submissive, selfless figure instead of a thoroughgoing fool. If this romantic maintained dreams, they were suppressed under an awareness of her present superfluity. Still, she could not escape the verdict of her youth and lived her life in the shadow of greater promises.
In her sympathetic description of this meek old maid, Weber set up the third member of her unmarried trinity: the beloved Tante (aunt). Neither angry like the shrew nor absurd like the starry-eyed ninny, the final model of the alte Jungfer was a figure to be emulated:
Our dear guardian angel to whom we as children bring our cuts and bruises, to whom young girls carry our hearts' troubles, and brothers while students bring their empty wallets, and our mothers bring concerns about household and children. And who has for us all needles and stain remover, consolation and understanding, a penny in time of need, good advice and above all a loving word. Our aunt who has so entirely overcome life that she only lives for others, and has the best spirit that can be for a very lonely woman with a very large heart after a long bitter life.52
Weber's mixed review provided a glimmer of hope for unmarried women. While still afflicted by pervasive loneliness, the aunt is also cherished in the domestic realm—where, of course, she ought to have been all along. The comforting embrace of a family could prevent a single woman from becoming vindictive or silly by giving her the opportunity to be “selfless, caring only for others, never for herself.”53
Through such selflessness—the antidote to the more ridiculous forms of old maidenhood—the unmarried woman could as much as possible approximate the experience of marriage. Supportive aunts needed to conform to the goals and desires of the families to which they were attached by internalizing family concerns and making them their own. This subjugation of self to family or parish, community or country, was the only way in which a spinster could participate in any sort of “mutual future.”54 The intimate details of family interaction could create a purpose in life for even the most deprived single women. Amalie Baisch's version of die Tante “in spite of everything would always save a couple of pennies in order to provide sweets for the children of the house.”55 The children crave the sweets and satiate the forsaken woman's need to love. The plight of the surplus woman might have been solved by something as simple as giving candy to babes.
But what if penny candy could not solve the problem? The pariah paradigm of the alte Jungfer hinged precisely on the exclusion of the surplus woman from such cozy moments of family life. The shrew was embittered by her rejection from the family; the romantic was tragicomic in her zeal to be welcomed into it. Only the beloved aunt was partially saved, for through her good works she earned a place in the domestic sphere. But what if no family was available, or needy, or sympathetic? The cycle of rejection continued and the female unmarried was doomed to a more pathetic fate.
Buddenbrooks’ Anti-Modern Old Maids
Thomas Mann's epic novel, Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family, employs the pathetic old maid as a symbol of stagnation in a society
