However, it may well be older and derived the German game of Black Peter, whose rules are recorded as early as 1821.

[7] These games originally employed a pack of 32 or 52 French cards, the queen of diamonds or jack of spades typically being the odd card and the player who is last in and left holding a single queen or jack becoming the "old maid", "vieux garçon", or "Black Peter" depending on the game.

[3] Apart from reprints of Leslie, the game largely disappeared from the literature during the mid-19th century but experienced something of a revival in the 1880s.[a].

This was boosted in England when proprietary cards emerged with nursery rhyme figures in 1883 under the name Merry Matches which, according to Bazaar, Exchange and Mart was a "newly invented game", despite its obvious derivation from Old Maid.

The player to the left of the dealer begins by throwing down a pair of cards held in her hand e.g. two kings or two threes.

The following rules are based on Arnold (2011), supplemented by other sources where indicated:[13] A standard pack is used (or two if more than six play) from which a single queen is removed.

"Merry Matches", a proprietary card game by Wyman & Sons of London, appeared in 1883.

There were 31 cards, the pairs "to be wed" including: Tommy Tucker and Goody Two-Shoes, Little Jack Horner and Miss Muffet, Father Christmas and Mrs Bond, Jack and Jill, Little Boy Blue and Little Bo Peep, the Prince and Cinderella, Dr Faustus and Dame Darden, The Man all tattered and torn and The Maiden all forlorn, Simple Simon and Lucy Locket, Father William and Old Mother Hubbard, Little Red Riding Hood and Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son.

The aims were threefold: to wed as many couples as possible, to make a match between Father Christmas and Mrs Bond, and to avoid being left with Mistress Mary, the penalty for which was to give every other player 2 counters.

The player left with the "scabby queen" (♠Q) is the loser and receives a number of raps on the knuckles with the edge of the pack.