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Along Life’s Way
Distaff
Day: January 7th
By Lois E. Wilson
If you are not familiar with the word “distaff” and come across it, you
might interpret its components in today’s slang. To “dis” is to rudely
criticize someone. So therefore, you might logically analyze “distaff”
to mean disparaging the staff of a business or facility. However, in
the dictionary, the word is defined first as female or maternal. That
is the way it is used now in everyday life. But where did this odd word
come from? In Proverbs 31:19 of the Bible, it states: “In her hand she
holds the distaff and grasps the spindle with her fingers.”
A distaff is a rod with a pronged upper end to hold the stock from
which the fibers are drawn to spin; its shaft is gripped under the left
elbow or thrust into the spinner’s belt. The fibers are then twisted
into yarn. It is also an attachment on a spinning wheel to hold the
fiber stock.
The question is how did that word become a synonym for the feminine
side? What and why is Distaff Day? The day falls on January 7th. It is
the day after Epiphany when women were to return to their work, such as
spinning. Distaff refers to women’s work. My grandmother was certainly
doing women’s labor on that date because it was my father’s birthday.
Every few years Plough Monday, the day for men to get back to work, and
Distaff Day fall on the same calendar date. It is a good signal to all
that men are not exempt from daily labor. The English poet, Robert
Herrick explains the frolic of the day in his verse “St. Distaff’s Day
or the Morrow after the Twelfth Day:”
Partly work and partly play
Ye must on St. Distaff’s Day:
From the plough soon free your team;
Then come home and fodder them;
If the maids a-spinning go;
Burn the flax and fire the tow,
Scorch their plackets, but beware
That ye singe no maiden hair.
Bring in pails of water, then
Let the maids bewash the men.
Give St. Distaff all the right,
Then bid Christmas sport good
night;
And next morrow every one
To his own vocation.
The ladies were prepared for this and had buckets of water ready to
pour on the burning flax and with which to douse the men.
Since I’m on the distaff side, on January 7th I’ll be returning to
work. I have some yarns just waiting to be spun.
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