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If it had a gender in English, I'd guess the gender would probably come from the 'land' portion
This is why the gender of wifman was masculine in OE. The Germanic rule has been that compound words take the gender of the last element. Mädchen is neuter in Modern German because all words ending in -chen are neuter. It is my contention that the concept of grammatical gender is meaningless in Modern English. It has become completely confused with the concept of sex, even to the point that, when filling out forms, you are asked, not your sex, but your gender.
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