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Forget ladies night, ladies get a whole day on February 29! Since Leap Day only occurs every four years, many women embrace the rare occasion and propose marriage to their significant other, and, while women proposing on Leap Day is a long-standing tradition, where exactly does this tradition come from?<\/p>\n
Like so many other folklore stories, there\u2019s myth and there\u2019s a bit of fact. The most common story behind this tradition comes from Ireland. In the 5th century, St. Bridget approached St. Patrick to tell him that women were tired of waiting for men to propose and that they wanted to be able to ask their man themselves.<\/p>\n
After much debate, St. Patrick agreed to allow women to propose on Leap Day. I\u2019m sure St. Bridget was overjoyed for women to be given one day every four years when they had the opportunity to propose.<\/p>\n
Aren\u2019t you glad we don\u2019t live in such an antiquated world anymore? Now, for the myth: Skeptics have stepped forward to disprove this story by pointing out that St. Bridget was only nine or 10 years old when St. Patrick died, making this a most unlikely story.<\/p>\n
[ew-supplier-carousel]<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n Though the origins are possibly unknown and hard to prove, that doesn\u2019t mean that the concept of women proposing<\/a> to men isn\u2019t a great tradition that has circulated throughout many cultures. It\u2019s believed that in 13th century Scotland, a law was passed that if a man declined to marry a woman after she proposed, he must pay a fine.<\/p>\n This fine was most commonly a kiss, a silk dress or a pair of gloves. In Finland, the fine for a man refusing a marriage proposal on February 29th was enough fabric to make a skirt. That\u2019s at least better than a pair of gloves to cover up the ring missing from your left hand.<\/p>\n Another Leap Day <\/a>story comes out of Scotland in 1288. It\u2019s said that Queen Margaret, who was unmarried, created a law that women could propose on February 29\u00a0but that they must wear a red petticoat as a way of giving the potential candidate a little heads up.<\/p>\n Sadly, even with years of scholars searching, this law has never been found.<\/p>\n Over in Britain, the story goes that Leap Day was treated as not a real day and that laws didn\u2019t apply. Without any laws binding women to tradition, they took the opportunity to propose to their men. No matter the culture, there still seems to be a fascination with this trend<\/a>, just watch the movie Leap Year<\/em> with Amy Adams from 2010 and you\u2019ll know what we mean.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re the kind of lady\u00a0who would happily to propose to her\u00a0partner, you\u2019re also, likely, not the type\u00a0of woman to let society dictate her actions. So, in that case, we say that while tradition is lovely, you really should propose whenever your heart feels the time is right!<\/p>\n Because,\u00a0seriously, who wants to wait four years to pop the big question?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38325,"template":"","au_article_tag":[237,1043,1246,617,837,618,1247],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/au-article\/38324"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/au-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/au-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/au-article\/38324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"au_article_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/au_article_tag?post=38324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}