'Old Maids' of the past...maybe they had AS?

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Every once in a while I'll see an obituary of a person, usually a woman, who never married and who never had kids. Now, I understand there's often varied reasons for this, but this made me think...how many 'old maids' from the past were that way because they were possibly on the Spectrum?

Quite possibly.

there still are 'old maids' that have AS!

Well yeah, but back then they didn't know what was the deal with them.

My aunt. She's a dead ringer for Elizabeth Taylor, educated, rich, successful professional, well travelled, great cook. She never married! She's almost certainly on the spectrum.

My paternal grandfather's sister never married or had children. She was an architect. She designed her own house. Her job took her all over the world. She listed several reasons why she never married, and warned her grandnieces against being sucked into marriage before they were ready or had a career and could support themselves without a husband.
She was very anal rigid and particular about a whole lot of things. She hosted our family holiday Christmas for years and minutely scheduled every detail...but socially, and for all practical purposes, she seemed NT to me...Granted, she had her peculiarities. My paternal grandfather might have been on the spectrum, and his younger brother even moreso(he was pretty extreme)....My dad and uncle are for practical purposes, eccentric NTs...(her brother's sons)

Like my grandfather, she was always worried about my possibly turning out "too weird'..as I was the weird kid in the family...with the most obvious learning and developmental difficulties...among my sister and cousins.

my maternal grandmother's youngest brother never married. He crawled into a bottle after his mother died and he never came out of it.

I got to know him quite well in his later years, as he moved back to town and eventually had to go into a care facility. One thing I know is he was NOT neurotypical. I'd have to place him on the spectrum. All his life he was transient doing farm work.

My paternal grandfather's younger brother spent much of his life in isolation..He never married and obsessively hoarded cats and built his house up in a fortress of junk. He had some pretty extreme eccentricities and obsessions and I would place him on the spectrum.

Interesting coincidence, I had been wondering the same these last few days... I think that the old maids were quite conformist. The Aspie women of today are more the witch type of the past. Those persecuted and killed for doing their own thing and not belonging to any herd and therefore having no one to defend them from abuse and false accusations and a cruel fate, stoned to death, burnt at the stakes, imprisoned for life in mental hospitals by their own families for speaking the ugly truths of the families outloud, and the like. The cinema and literature are full of the non-conformist types who were too naive at the same time.

My paternal Gt. grandmother exhibited several traits. She never married, but had illegitimate children. She was the black sheep of her family, very blunt and scared people, loved animals and preferred them to humans, had pronounced executive dysfunction, had an obsessive interest in song and poetry writing, and was a business owner.

I might as well become an old maid with AS... some would say I'm already an old maid because I'm 31 years old.
The most aspie-like thing about it might be that I don't think it matters...

That's true, but there are also women now who just choose not to marry, at all or just for awhile. I think the question was more about women who didn't marry or have kids at a time when the norm was for a woman to go straight from her parents' house to her husband's house, and most women didn't see any other option. Now most women live on their own for at least a little while, some enjoy it, some get caught up in careers.. It's not particularly strange anymore.

I could have easily resigned to being an oldmaid... or better yet, a spinster!

poopylungstuffing, my mother's elder brother is very like your great-uncle. He did get married, though, and had five kids. His wife used to take care of all the practical stuff and the family, though. He always seemed very much an AS 'type' - didn't like socializing, could talk for England about his obsessions but not comfortable with ordinary conversation. Now he has dementia, and he may not last much longer, and his eldest daughter has a whole house full of junk and papers to clear out.

We had an 'old maid' on the other side of the family who was definitely NT. Very sad story; she went into domestic service as girls often did back then, got pregnant by the son of the house, and was made to give her baby up for adoption. Her mother never forgave her, and she was basically kept at home for the rest of her life looking after her brothers, then her elderly parents. She died not long after they did, from exhaustion I think. So, sometimes it's complicated.

I think a lot of eldest daughters, like her, ended up basically being slaves to their parents for years; I've encountered a few. Sometimes the parents, especially mothers, just assume that's going to happen. When an old lady in a nursing home doesn't get visited by her daughter, there's often a good reason.

I had my own mother turn round to me after my divorce and tell me she'd expected me to stay an old maid. She said men 'didn't suit me' and that she'd have preferred me to stay at home and be her old age companion. I'm very glad I left home, for, um, obvious reasons, can you tell?

that's how i got stuck. but i'm the youngest. the rest of my family have nothing to do with me. not even when i was small.

i've been trapped for so long by my mother that marrying a man would just be more of the same for me. and to what end? the acceptance of other women? that sure as hell isn't worth it. so my only freedom is my singleness.

Can't you just leave?