The
right of every women to propose on 29th February each leap year, goes back many
hundreds of years to when the leap year day had no recognition in English law
(the day was 'lept over' and ignored, hence the term 'leap year'). It was considered,
therefore, that as the day had no legal status, it was reasonable to assume
that traditions also had no status. Consequently, women who were concerned about
being 'left on the shelf' took advantage of this anomoly and proposed to the
man they wished to marry.
It was also thought that since the leap year day corrected the discrepancy between
the calendar year of 365 days and the time taken for the Earth to complete one
orbit of the sun (365 days and 6 hours), it was an opportunity for women to
correct a tradition that was one-sided and unjust.
For those wishing to take advantage of this ancient tradition, you will only
have to wait until Tuesday 29th February 2000.
