During the late 19th and early 20th centuries women were socially and economically dependent upon their husband or other male relations. Spinsterhood challenged society’s definition of women, yet most of the Thorburn and MacGregor sisters who lived at Meroogal and next door at Kintore chose not to marry.

It was Meroogal and the support of family that gave both the Thorburn and the MacGregor women the ability to lead independent, single lives without undertaking paid employment and compromising their middle class status as 'ladies.' Meroogal was both a home and an economic resource, providing food and fuel from the garden and rent from occasional paying guests and tenants. Without Meroogal, the single, independent lives of the women who lived there may not have been possible.