Leap Away

I didn’t know about this and I have no idea how well known this tradition is.

This morning while going through some obscure section of one of the newspaper supplements for the day, I came about this article which claimed that the extra day once in 4 years wasn’t so insignificant after all.

Well, at least for women that is. Apparently the tradition goes like: Any woman has the right to propose any man (for marriage, I am guessing, and yes the guy cannot be engaged), and oooh wait, the guy can’t say no. Sounds delusional.

The Corrs Celtic track “I never loved you anyway” started playing in my head over and over again, as I wondered if I could somehow milk this never heard of tradition; and literally ran a fire drill my head to check if today was the lucky day.

“Yes, yes it is”, my friend shrieked. I have no idea why the both of us got so excited anyway. Maybe we really dug the girl-power reference right then. And of course the stupidity.

Well of course there was a catch to the not-being-able-to-say-no rule. They could decline the proposal at the cost of a compensation which they referred to as a ‘fine’. It would be either a silk dress, a kiss or, yes beat this - ₤1.

I was disappointed, again clueless as to what evoked such strong emotions in me over the issue. I didn’t think the bargain was good enough. I mean if you make a rule where the guy is not supposed to turn you down, the fine should be like astronomically high anyway. Like the entire Gilmore girls Box set or something. Not some god-forsaken dress, not a peachy kiss, and oh god – no way do you get rid of a girl in just Rs 80 (?).

The tradition started in England where they didn’t find anything to do with the extra day they were suddenly burdened with. No, they didn’t think of scuba diving or tomato squishing festivals. They rocked their brains around their skulls to the point of a minor concussion and came up with this tradition. So yeah, they justified that since the day didn’t count into the annual calendar, the fairer sex could shed their inhibitions and demureness for the day, and freak out.

Okay, now the real-no-kidding-shutting-up-sitting-straight-up-story.

Well actually, according to English law, February 29th had no legal status and was off the record. So the forebearers of the society reasoned that traditions would have no status either. They decided to make use this loophole to their advantage and rectify an age old unjust custom that did not allow the womenfolk to propose to men at that time. So in 1288, Scotland passed a law that allowed women to propose marriage to the man of their choice in that year.

Nice. Really.

I could do with some money. And of course smart professors. Seriously?

Well a girl has got to freak out when tradition calls.

P.S. : I might be really dumb. So there is a good chance that every other person in the world is aware of this tradition while I have no clue about it. So please don't berate me with accusations of being ill-informed, if you happened to know about this.