Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 29, 1992 TAG: 9202290136
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A2 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: The Baltimore Sun
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
WHY AN EXTRA DAY? FOLKLORE'S LEAP IS FOR ROMANCE
Listen up, all you shy, love-sick folks of the female persuasion, today is leap day.You know. Sadie Hawkins Day when it's OK to take the initiative and ask for the hand of that man you adore.
We know, we know. It's really OK for you flirtatious women to pop the question any day of the year. It's equally OK for all you manly guys to be on the receiving end of the marriage proposal.
Or as an advocate of women's rights put it: "We've come a long way since Sadie Hawkins ran out of Dogpatch," said Pat Riviere, a Maryland legislative representative for the National Organization for Women.
But just in case there are any women who need that extra push to propose, tradition is on your side today, hon. It only comes around once every four years.
How and why Leap Day, and some say the entire leap year, became known as a time when women are sanctioned to propose to men is a bit unclear.
As near as researchers can figure, it could have begun with a man named Patrick and a woman named Bridget.
Actually, it's St. Patrick and St. Bridget, and, according to a very old Irish legend, they lived in 5th century Ireland. Bridget was in charge of a nunnery and she was upset at the prevailing tradition that women had to wait for the man to propose.
The church did not require celibacy at the time.
Bridget approached Patrick, who obviously was a man of some authority, to talk about it. He said he would allow it during leap year because that would give women an extra day to propose.
Bridget then promptly proposed to Patrick. He turned her down. The cad.
Scientifically speaking, leap year and Leap Day have absolutely nothing to do with who proposes to whom.
One day is added to the calendar every four years so that the Gregorian calendar stays in sync with the earth's orbital period.
It has to be done, explained astronomer Dennis McCarthy, chief of earth orientation parameters at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington. "If not, you would have July and it would be snowing," McCarthy said.
Leap year first was adopted by Roman emperor Julius Caesar in 45 B.C. and went into effect the following year. In the 16th century, Pope Gregory XIII had to fine-tune Caesar's calculations.
But back to the folklore. Sometime in the Middle Ages, an unwritten law went into effect in the British Isles. Any single man who rejected a woman's proposal had to pay her with a kiss and a silk dress or a pair of gloves.
And in the year 1288, the Scottish Parliament passed a law making it legal for "any maiden lady" to propose to a man of her choice. A women intending to propose had to show the hem of her red petticoat as a tipoff to men.
If the man didn't have a good enough reason for refusing, he was subject to a fine.
As for who Sadie Hawkins was, that was the brainchild of cartoonist Al Capp. In the 1930s comic strip, "Li'l Abner," a female character name Sadie Hawkins who lived in the fictional Dogpatch was having a rather tough time getting a man to propose to her.
Her father, the mayor of said fictional town, declared one day "Sadie Hawkins Day." The unmarried women in Dogpatch raced, literally, after unmarried men to propose on that day.