Leap Year and Leap Year Proposals

2024 is a leap year. February has 29 days instead of the usual 28. But how did we get to leap year, a year that adds an extra day every four years?

What is Leap Year: Explanation of Puzzling Feature of the Common Calendar. Why Some Years Have 305 Day. and Others 366 and Why the Latter Are Irregular—The Inequality Leads to Some Apparently Peculiar Situation—Some Birthdays are Years Apart.

Is the headline for an article from the Cheyenne Daily Leader, December 30, 1903, which talks about what leap year is.

Do you know that tomorrow at midnight a bissextile year begins? Probably you do without being aware of the fact, for if you know that at that time leap year begins you know without knowing that you know. Do you know what leap year is, how it differs from other years? Probably you can answer without hesitation that leap year contains 366 days, while an ordinary year contains but 365 days.

But do you know why this is? It’s big odds that nine out of ten persons cannot answer that question. If you happen to of them there is information for you here. Webster’s definition of “year” is “The time of the apparent revolution of the sun through the eclipse; the period occupied by the earth in making its revolution around the sun; also, period more or less nearly agreeing with this, adopted by various nations as measure of time, as the lunar year of 354 days, still in use among the Mohammedans; the year of 360 days, of 365 and the like. In common usage the year consists of 360 days, and every fourth year of 366, day being added to February on that year, on account of the excess above 366 days.”

To those who remember that the coming year will be the first leap year for eight years, however, this definition is not satisfactory, and further investigation must be made. By coupling the definition of the anomalistical year, which is “the time of the earth’s revolution from perihelion to perihelion again, which is 365 days, hours, 13 minutes, and 48 seconds,” with that of bissextile year, which is “the year consisting of 366 days. It is such year of the current reckoning as is evenly divisible by 4, – except those, as 1700, 1800, etc., that are divisible by 100 and not by 400. The intercalary day is placed at the end of February;” this explanation is obtained. The year 1000 was not leap year because it was divisible by 100 but not by 400, and the year 1904 will be leap year because it is divisible by 4, being contained in 1904 exactly 476 times.

There is also the tradition, during leap year, where women can propose matrimony to the man of her choice. The above article continues on this vein.

Of course every marriageable young woman, and those who have passed that stage, knows that in leap year she is entitled to suggest to the gentleman of her hearts desire that their souls are kindred and should be united by the marriage bond, but there is no record of any Cheyenne lady ever having had to resort to that extreme measure.

However, it was somewhat different in Sheridan in 1920. This from The Sheridan Enterprise, March 6, 1920

And this story in the Park County Enterprise, September 8, 1920, which gives a little history of this custom.

Custom by Which She Is at Liberty at That Time to Choose Her Life Partner Is Ancient and Honorable. According to an old myth, a girl aspiring to matrimony in leap year is at liberty not only to choose her life partner, but should the man of her choice by any chance feel indisposed to wander by her side he is under obligation to soften her disappointment by proffering a silk gown and a kiss. In these days, when the prices for raiment of any material, not to mention silk, have soared to such inaccessible heights, it might be advantageous for a man “to cherish and obey,” repent and rue, for the rest of his quota on earth rather than produce the price for an all-silk gown. An old law, said to have existed in Scotland in the year 1288 may afford additional comfort to skeptical spinsters of today, even to the extent of rejuvenating their hopes for securing during the coming year a spouse, a silk gown, a kiss, or all three; at all events, it will doubtless instill further assurance as to the veracity of this timeworn but none the less tender privilege.

The spelling is left as it appeared in the 1920 newspaper.

This law reads: “It is statute and ordaint that during the rein of her of her masit blessed Megeate, for in the years know as lepe years, Ilk mayden layde of both highe and lowe estate, shall have liberte to beseake ye man she likes, albeit he refuses to take her to be his lawful wyfe, he shall be mulcted in ye sum and pundls or less as his estate may he; except and if he can make it appear that he Is betrothed to an other women, he then shall be free.”

A curious little book entitled “Love, Courtship and Matrimony,” published in London in 1006, contains the following contribution apropos to the subject : “Albeit it nowe become a part of the common lawe in regard to social relations of life, that as often as every leap yeare doth return, the ladyes have the sole privilege during the time it continueth of making love, either by wordes or lookes, as to them It seemeth proper, and, moreover, no man will be entitled to benefit of clergy who doth in any wise treat here with slight or contumely.”— New York Evening Sun

Of course, many confirmed bachelors were afraid that some young lady would, indeed, propose, leaving the bachelor in an awkward situation. In the Wyoming State Tribune – Cheyenne State Leader, December 31, 1923, it had this list of ideas to keep one’s bachelorhood during leap year. This is but a short list of all the advice that was listed in the article.

Our Leap Year Advice To Single Men Is – Look Before You Leap

Wear your Christmas neckties all during Leap Year and they will help you to stay single.

Get a good haircut and tell her you think Valentlno is a bum, will keep you single this Leap Year.

Chaw tobacco and spit on her floor. Not sanitary, but helps you stay single during Leap Year.

Quit shaving during Leap Year and you are safe. No girl will propose to a human hairbrush.

Tell her none of the other girls want to marry you. It will keep you single during Leap Year.

Never having your shoes shined or trousers pressed will help you stay single this Leap Year. Difficult, but helps you stay single during Leap Year

Going about with holes in your socks and not washing your feet will keep you single during Leap Year.

Go to see your girl and take a book to read. This will help you stay single during Leap Year.

So, happy leap year everyone, and enjoy an extra day in February. And if any young maiden has her heart set on marriage to her lover, now is the time to propose. It may not work but may be worth a try.