Sadie Hawkins day and Leap Day

"The comic strip featuring Miss Hawkins first appeared in 1937 and by 1938, the University of Tennessee hosted the first Sadie Hawkins Day. It was a joke probably taken too far, but it would soon explode. Sadie Hawkins Day Goes National. Sadie Hawkins Day has its origin in a comic strip, but it quickly grew to be much more." Source: /the-history-of-sadie-hawkins-day/

I know half my readers don't go to links...so here's the historic information.

"Sadie Hawkins Day is based on the character Sadie Hawkins from Li’l Abner, a massively important (and now very outdated) comic strip during the Great Depression and for decades after.

Our heroine, Sadie Hawkins, was a homely young woman in the backwater town of Dogpatch, a fictional town located somewhere in the south.

Unfortunately for Sadie, her looks didn’t make her a particularly attractive marriage prospect. In an attempt to get her hitched and out of his hair, Sadie’s father set up a race for all the single men around Dogpatch. The men would start running, and Sadie would chase after them. She got to marry the slowest man, or whoever it was she caught.

It was, effectively, a forced marriage mixed with a bit of progressivism.

Still, the idea struck a chord with American women, who were probably tired of waiting around to be chosen by a man. The comic strip featuring Miss Hawkins first appeared in 1937 and by 1938, the University of Tennessee hosted the first Sadie Hawkins Day."

It goes on to give the annual date as Nov. 13.  One source said it was Nov. 15.

"By 1939, only two years after Sadie Hawkins first chased down the men of Dogpatch, 201 colleges across America planned their own November dances inspired by the comic...

But there’s another tradition often confused with Sadie Hawkins Day – Leap Day.

According to Irish Catholic tradition, it’s permissible for women to propose marriage every four years on February 29th.

Sadie Hawkins and Leap Day have little to do with each other. First, Sadie Hawkins is the Depression-era accidental creation of Al Capp – the creator of Li’l Abner.

However, the Leap Year marriage tradition is believed to have started in the 5th centuryon the island of Ireland. According to myth, St. Bridget wasn’t happy that women had to wait forever and a day for men to propose to them. She complained about their plight to St. Patrick.

February 29th, also known as St. Bridget’s Complaint, was granted by the benevolent St. Patrick so that girls with guys who just wouldn’t commit could propose marriage on their own.

Like Sadie Hawkins, St. Bridget’s Complaint also took on a life of its own. Scotland picked up the idea in 1288 under the reign of the unmarried Queen Margaret. Allegedly a law was passed allowing women to propose to whoever they chose that year. 

Men who declined a proposal during a leap year were required to pay their suitor a fine. Payment could be anything from a pair of gloves to a dress to a kiss. 

So all my life I've heard of Sadie Hawkins Day as Leap Day. Someone sure got that mixed up. And like so many of us these days, I believed the lie.  Watch out!

Most women in 2020 have the knowledge that they can ask for what they want, and refuse what they want. The "me too" era has let many women speak about how difficult it is to say no to men's advances. I dare say that these days there also some men who find it difficult to say no.  But the important thing these days is to keep talking, and not second guess each other.  I'm serious. We have little internal dialogs that get us in so much trouble because we assume something another person does or says has a certain meaning. Yes, our facial and gestural indications (smile, frown, shrug) supposedly give information accurately.

But I just finished reading Malcolm Gladwell's "Talking with Strangers" and it's full of how we misunderstand another person's meanings. I highly recommend this book, though it may blow a few of our assumptions away.

So happy hunting for mates today, if you wish to do that. And enjoy asserting your own power, especially women if you were raised to be a people-pleaser. And the same goes for the shy men who never get around to asking another human to go out on a date.  Maybe nobody goes on dates any more. I've stopped watching TV episodes about romance, as it's kind of boring to me...so I don't know what is actually happening. I do look to improve communication by clarifying what I mean...when I can, and asking the same from those with whom I speak.