Bachelor
The bachelor is an unmarried man regardless of his age. The female equivalent is bachelor (formerly partly synonymous with virgin , which today has different connotations in German). It is not a legal term, but arises from social sentiment. In the context of tradition, one speaks of young men for the unmarried, in some contexts of the pride of the hag .
Concept development
Medieval origin and previous use
The term comes from the artisan language of the high medieval guild system : the bachelor was initially the youngest of the journeymen in a craft business and, in contrast to the old journeyman , was on the lowest level of the ladder. Since the 15th century the word has primarily referred to the young journeyman on the move who has not yet been able to start a family (compare also boy ).
Bachelor and male booth
Since the 16th century, "bachelor" has generally referred to the younger unmarried man as opposed to the husband : The right of establishment for craftsmen in the guilds was linked to the mastery as well as the obligation to establish a household, which means that the vocational training term of the journeyman refers to the civil status transforms. Those who remained unmarried lived in the bachelor's class . The fact that the bachelor's class was a welcome resource for people capable of military service and who could be recruited - taking a man from marriage, family and work to military service has always been an emergency measure because it reduces the necessary economic power - was not an obstacle, at times one Levy bachelor tax to encourage bachelors to marry.
Occasionally was a bachelor (although rarely Junker , as opposed to virgin ), the male counterpart to the Virgin , a young man still with no wife called sexual intercourse had. Today there is also the description of male virgin for it . The extent to which the term was also related to homosexuality can hardly be determined, as this type of sexuality was taboo in public discourse in the Christian Middle Ages and early modern times .
Bachelor and marital status
Traditionally, the bachelor was therefore equated with the civil status single . According to some present-day feelings, however, its application to people who live in a illegitimate (marriage-like) partnership (also called wild marriage ) is considered to be incorrect. With the development of a new civil status for people living in a civil partnership , it is also unclear for many in their perception whether marriage is absolutely necessary to end their bachelorhood . Overall, the change in the understanding of marriage in society also entails a change in the understanding of bachelor parties. The age of the target person no longer plays a role in the application of the term.
The bachelor status as the opposite of the marital status is no longer socially outlawed today; the proportion of unmarried people in society is increasing. Even divorced people sometimes - not quite correctly - refer to themselves as bachelors . In current linguistic usage, bachelors and bachelors are being replaced more and more frequently by the more modern terms single or single , which, however, also includes divorced as well as widows and widowers. For unmarried people who deliberately live this way of life for a longer period of time, the term bachelor is often used in connection with a word such as convinced , inveterate , professing or eternal . The choice of the additional word often depends on the exact context.
Bachelor and youth
As early as the 18th century, however, a romanticizing view of the status of the unmarried developed:
"For this is God's true poison * ,
when the flower meets the flowering stage;
therefore maiden and bachelors
even give sign in spring ”.
(Goethe)
* Gift
The older unmarried man over 50 was - given a slightly negative, ironic note - called Hagestolz .
Bachelorhood and homosexuality
However, the term bachelor is sometimes also used (mostly in connection with a descriptive adjective such as inveterate , confessing or convinced ) as a euphemism if the user does not want to openly address the topic of homosexuality . In the case of men who are not outed , this occurs as a self-description or as a journalistic description. Especially in conservative circles, in which the willingness to speak openly about homosexuality is particularly low, the term is considered a socially accepted language regulation, even if the target person of the term is openly gay .
Usage today
Today the term is hardly used anymore. As a result of a change in meaning and values , the Anglicism single is mostly used for people of both sexes who are not in a partnership. In popular psychological discourse, however, it is more likely than single women that men living alone are ascribed “inability to have relationships ”, often also as self-attribution; scientific psychology does not know such a "inability to relate".
Sometimes the term "bachelor economy" or "bachelor household " is also used, denoting a somewhat untidy and neglected domestic environment. It is based on the idea that men place less value on cleanliness, order and furnishings. In the past, men often actually did not have the necessary knowledge of housekeeping and food preparation, so that an unmarried man, if he did not employ a housekeeper , was actually overwhelmed with these questions.
Customs about the bachelorette party
The young men in European folk custom
In addition to the characteristics of the costume - such as a pink ribbon for the bachelor, red for the man, which corresponds to the hood of the women's costume - a wealth of customs are reserved for young men in the town. These include, for example:
- Setting up the maypole including maypole climbing
- Burning the fires in many varieties of fire , including jumping over the fire
- The sweeping
- Disguise moves like Perchtenlauf , Glöckeln and the like.
All of these customs represent the counterpart of the bride show : At local festivals, people from surrounding places come together. To be able to stand out through special strength, perseverance, skill or daring at such festivals is an essential purpose of such customs. The overt sexual connotation of some of these customs is no accident.
Bachelorette party
If a man is about to get married , his bachelorette party is often celebrated in the purely male circle of friends : Since the husband-to- be is no longer a bachelor after the wedding , this custom ends his bachelor life in a festive or humid manner. In Great Britain this custom has a particularly long and extensively celebrated tradition, with its own songs (“For he's a jolly good fellow”), drinking bouts and sexual debauchery. Young women are also celebrating their bachelorette parties there with a lot of alcohol and friends in pubs and discos - often in carnival costumes. This custom has been gaining ground in Germany for several years. In southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Denmark is called the boisterous farewell to the Single-being with the term hen party . In Great Britain, the bachelorette party is called ' Stag Night ', and that of the hen night is called ' Hen Night '. The term 'Stag Night' or 'Stag Party' is also known in the USA and other English-speaking countries.
Non-European ethnological aspects
Bachelor house is called for some non-European peoples, z. B. in West Africa , Indonesia , back India and especially in Oceania , the large community house in which the young, unmarried men live together.
See also
Web links
- Wolfgang Ebert: A bachelor is not a single in Die Zeit from February 29, 1980
Individual evidence
- ↑ Brockhaus 2004, bachelor
- ↑ Eckhard Fuhr: The meaning of the scandal. In: The world. August 21, 2003.
- ↑ Elmar Kraushaar: The homosexual man ... In: TAZ. May 14, 2002.
- ↑ Jürgen Balthasar: The tragic end of a double life. ( Memento of the original from May 8, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Stern. January 16, 2005.
