LEAP YEAR

Well, Leap year is a year which has 366 days instead of 365 days. This one additional day can be found in the last day of February, which is February 29^th. Leap year happens once in four years. So, according to 2012 calendar, this year is a leap year. Talking about leap year, there is a special thing about this year especially for some countries in Europe. In Ireland, for example, there is a folk tradition which has been claimed since 5^th century ago in this country that related to the leap year. One of the famous traditions came from Ireland is that on leap day, women in Ireland can propose marriage to the men. So, in other words on leap day every single Irish woman has a privilege asking every single man in that country to married them. For us it’s probably something strange to hear about but for the Irish, that is their tradition because in their culture, it’s okay for a woman to propose marriage to a man.

 

Furthermore, you may ask what happen if the proposal was rejected by the men. Well, the man who refused or rejected the marriage proposal has to pay a fine or compensation for the woman. The compensation could be a silk gown or money. It all depends on what that particular woman wants. But, in many European countries, especially in the upper classes of society, tradition says that any man who refuses a woman’s marriage proposal on February 29^th has to buy her 12 pairs of gloves. The meaning of this compensation is that the woman can wear the gloves to hide embarrassment of not having an engagement ring because her leap day’s marriage proposal was rejected by the man.

As well as Ireland, Finland also shares the same tradition, but the compensation is different. The man who refuses the woman’s proposal should buy her the fabrics for a skirt. The meaning of this compensation is unclear and I couldn’t find any further in formation but perhaps you can Google it by your self.

Actually, leap year doesn’t always bring a good belief in some countries like Greece and Scotland. In contrast to Ireland and Finland, Greece has different belief about leap year. The Greeks believe it’s not good to marriage in a leap year because they considered its unlucky year and they avoid getting married in a leap year. So, if you travel to Greece during leap year or leap day, you won’t find any wedding party there because the tradition says it’s an unlucky day. On the other hand in Scotland there is other trust that it used to be considered unlucky for someone to be born on leap day, just like Friday 13^th is considered unlucky day by many people around the world.