YES. LEAP YEAR ROMANCES REALLY DID OCCUR!
Some Leap Year engagements credited to poor behavior of young men in the other three out of four years. Thus Ladies’ Leap Year Clubs and Men’s Leap Year Clubs passed resolutions of how to best protect and support one another through the difficulties. Rules for Leap Year parties, and more!
If you recall seeing the 2010 movie, LEAP YEAR, starring Amy Adams and Matthew Goode, then you know a great deal of fun can be poked at the long-held European tradition of ladies taking a turn, roughly once every four years, in the dominant role of pursuer in a romantic relationship.
According to an article titled LEAP YEAR, and subtitled: Ladies’ law in Leap Year–Bachelors’ Penalty, as published in The Weekly Kansas Chief newspaper on 21 January, 1892, “A lady has the privilege in leap year of suggesting marriage between herself and a bachelor acquaintance.
In 1865 (34 years earlier than Franks’ scheme), a similar incidence in New England didn’t get quite so far but caused quite a stir.
A man with two wives (neither knows about the other) seeks yet two more, entirely to swindle them of their means. This 1899 tale is so well worth reading.
Franks, as he presents himself on the West Coast, in the middle of defrauding women through multiple marriage agencies is scammed, himself, by a wealthy widow in demand of a expensive courtship.
Amateur historians will find myriad details worth noting, such as the communication of chiefs of police, use of the term “dead beat,” laws on the books, and so much more.
