But in the Victorian era, there was immense pressure for women to tie the knot.
Those who didn t were described as Spinsters and were the subject of cruel jokes.
But a popular weekly magazine from the 1880s shows that unmarried women were perfectly capable of fighting back.
Comments sent in by single women who had been invited in a competition to explain, Why I am a Spinster showed the acerbic wit of respondents.
Historian Dr Bob Nicholson found the jokes while studying an 1889 edition of Tit- Bits Magazine, which continued to be published until 1984.
Dr Nicholson told MailOnline: I love some of the responses to this competition they turn the stereotype of the Victorian spinster on its head and reveal some of the reasons why some Victorian women might have preferred to remain single.