Fräulein
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Template:Lang (Template:IPAc-en Template:Respell, Template:IPA) is the German language honorific for unmarried women, comparable to Miss in English and Template:Lang in French.
Description
Template:Lang is the diminutive form of Template:Lang, which was previously reserved only for married women.
Template:Lang is in origin the equivalent of "my lady" or "Madam", a form of address of a noblewoman. But by an ongoing process of devaluation of honorifics, it came to be used as the unmarked term for "woman" by about 1800. Therefore, Template:Lang came to be interpreted as expressing a "diminutive of woman", as it were, implying that a Template:Lang is not-quite-a-woman. By the 1960s, this came to be seen as patronising by proponents of feminism, partly because there is no equivalent male diminutive, and during the 1970s and 1980s, the term Template:Lang became nearly taboo in urban and official settings, while it remained an unmarked standard in many rural areas. It is seen as sexist by modern feminists.<ref name=":0" />
This process was somewhat problematic, at least during the 1970s to 1980s, since many unmarried women of the older generation insisted on Template:Lang as a term of distinction, respecting their status, and took the address of Template:Lang as offensive or suggestive of extra-marital sexual experience.Template:Cn
From the 1970s, Template:Lang was used less often, and it was banned from official use in West Germany in 1972 by the Minister of the Interior. Nevertheless, the word, as a title of address and in other uses, continues to be used, albeit in much reduced frequency.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Nowadays, style guides and dictionaries recommend that all women be addressed as Template:Lang regardless of marital status, particularly in formal situations.<ref>Template:Cite webTemplate:Dead link</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> A newsletter published on the website of the German dictionary Duden in 2002, for instance, noted that women should only be addressed as Template:Lang when they specifically request this form of address.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref>
One area in which the word still sees wide use is in the form of an admonishing address towards girls until about their mid-teens, usually by a parent.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>