Ladies may not be leaping for love on the 29th

According to century-old tradition, women weary of waiting for their partners to propose can seize the day on 29 February to pop the question to the man of their dreams.

Yet those looking to invoke “The Ladies’ Privilege” this Leap Year may wish to reconsider, with over fifty per cent (51%) of people naming this as a nightmare proposal scenario, according to research released this week.

A survey of 1,029 UK adults from Greenbee.com, the company offering leisure and financial services from the John Lewis Partnership, has revealed that come proposal time, 58 per cent of women are less than keen to accept responsibility and get down on bended knee themselves.

Just over four in 10 (42 per cent) men surveyed also said they would not appreciate their marriage-minded partners choosing to propose. However it appears that there are some men who would relish the opportunity to have the pressure taken off them for once.

The research also reveals that men are more than three times as likely as women to consider this to be an ideal proposal, with 22 per cent of men naming this as their dream proposal scenario, compared to a lowly 7 per cent of women.

Other key findings of the greenbee.com research are:

- Almost one in five (19 per cent) of those aged 45-54 consider women dropping to one knee to be a dream proposal, closely followed by 18-24 year olds (17 per cent) - not so those aged 65+ (8 per cent).

- 64 per cent of 65+ year olds would not follow Leap Year tradition and believe women taking the initiative and proposing to men to be a nightmare proposal scenario.

- Those in the North of England are most likely to have a positive outlook on fed-up females taking the lead come proposal time - good news for those women in the region looking to take advantage of the Leap Year tradition. Almost one in five (18 per cent) of those surveyed named this as a dream proposal.

- Only 11 per cent of those in Scotland consider women proposing marriage as an ideal scenario, below the national average of 14 per cent.

- Women living in the Midlands and Wales & South West would be well-advised not to propose to their partners on 29 February; over half (54 per cent) name this as a nightmare proposal.

James Furse, Managing Director, greenbee.com said: “The research from greenbee.com has shown that while women may have strong ideas on what makes for the perfect proposal, when the shoe is on the other foot it is quite a different story.

“While it is of course acceptable for women to propose marriage at any time of the year, it is interesting to see that the majority of those we surveyed would favour the traditional proposal methods and wait for their partners to make the first move.”