Princeton alumna tells young women to "find a husband on campus"
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I feel like people are missing her point. Her reasoning for this is not because women need to "settle down" early or start families. She clearly states that men elsewhere are too stupid and that Princeton educated women need to find men as smart as they are, because men from any other college (or who *GASP* DIDN'T GO TO COLLEGE!!! ) simply won't do...
This is what I thought her point was as well. It's not about age but about finding someone with similar values. As you imply, men from lower quality colleges or no college at all most likely don't have the same values... at least from an academic perspective.
The same could apply to a religious person who attends church (or the alike). They are likely to find someone with similar values in their church (etc.).
I honestly think that society might be better off and more healthy overall, if women (and men) married much younger than they do today -- marrying at 18-22 in fact might be ideal. If our foremothers and forefathers of the more distant past did it with higher rates of successful marriages and less divorces, why question something that has worked previously, historically speaking?
My guess is that the age they got married was not the primary cause of greater success rates.
The primary cause was that the people in the marriage felt that producing children, raising them, and having a good family, was by far the most important goal, not just of the marriage but of life itself. And society back them emphasized this goal, demanded it, and ostracized those who displayed that it was not their goal, so there was a lot of societal pressure to keep the marriage together.
Note that this was not the primary goal of BOTH partners in the marriage. Back then, the man was considered the provider, while the woman was considered the chief nurturer and child-raiser. They were a complementary pair, whose roles were NOT identical. So in fact the man had another goal: success in his business or job, because that would fulfill his obligation in the primary raise-the-family goal.
Note that child-raising was considered the woman's primary goal, not only in the maiiage, but in life itself. So an unmarried woman with no children, was considered useless, unproductive, an oddball, someone with no purpose in life. While an unmarried man with no children could still be a success, productive, a titan of industry or whatever (or a playboy, which was also seen as success).
Today, especially in the United States, those roles are considerably eroded. Many women feels that they can be a success, with or without children, with or without marriage. Even those who do get married, see other possible roles for themselves - marriage and childrearing are NOT the only possible things they can do with their lives. And even the married women (and men) with children see themselves, not fulfilling their highest roles in life, but rather as restricting themselves from other possible roles.
So today, especially in the U.S., there is a lot less pressure on men and women to either get into a marriage or stay there. Men always had the vision that they could do other things than form families, but most women did not... until the second half of the 1900s when that began to change.
And I think that that changing outlook is what is resulting in more and more failed marriages, as well as more people who don't get married in the first place. Age has little to do with the breakups. But people whose dominant desire is to form a family and who have little interest in doing anything else, join into marriage as soon as they can - late teens or early 20s - simply because they feel they are wasting their time doing anything else, and decide to "get to it".
But other people, who want to get married but also feel there are other things they could well do (career etc.), often try the other things first since marriage is forever, and childrearing is nearly forever. If the career has problems they can always change course and start a family instead; but if they get married and have kids and start having problems, they can't make the kids vanish and take up a career instead. So many people try the career first before producing kids.
And of course, there's a third group: Those who get married with no intention of producing children, and so they don't produce any, but go right into careers while married. Later when those marriages have problems, they don't feel there is THAT much reason to stay married (while married people with kids see much more reason), so the childless couples may break up more readily when the going gets tough. This adds to the number of "failed marriages" The availability of more birth-control options also makes it eaier to not have children while still having lots of sex, too, which makes it much more common for couples to remain childless while making whoopee. A hundred years ago, couple who intended to remain childless, often wound up with an unexpected arrival anyway; while it is easier (though by no means foolproof) today to remain childless.
When I was in college in the 1980's it was called "getting your M.R.S. degree". Poor families could afford to enroll their daughters for one semester in hopes that they would be able to latch onto a graduating engineering student.
The media is taking a part of what was said out of context and quoting only that. As usual, the sheeple are getting up in arms about it and not bothering to read the entire piece. So here is the letter in it's full context.
Ms. Patton was speaking to a group of young women who asked her how she maintained friends and family after college. They weren't inquiring about careers.She was not telling them the must find husbands or they must get married. She was simply replying to questions they had asked about these subjects and then bringing it up in her letter later on.
This is far different from the path young women were encouraged to take in the 60's. I find it humorous that those who were not born at that time are making comparisons. I was in college then. Young girls were encouraged to attend college, any college find a husband and then drop out of school to marry him. For girls, it was called getting your "Mrs." degree. This is a far cry from what Ms. Patton is saying. Girls were encouraged to have a year or two of college but not finish. In fact if they did, they were in some circles considered losers who failed to find husbands.
She is responding to her female audience were interested in this aspect of life to find husbands who are on the same intellectual, socialogical and cultural level. College is the best place to do that because chances are, that is where they will be. But she isn't encouraging them to marry immediately. She isn't telling them to drop out and marry as soon as they are found. Just because they may meet a suitable mate doesn't mean they can't wait until a few years until the time is right.
I don't think her advice is bad for those women who wish to choose marriage and family as well as a career.
All these people who are up in arms about what they think she said i.e. something anti-feminist don't seem to realize that highly educated MEN never seem to have to give up having BOTH career and a stable happy family life. Highly educated women have much narrower options for finding husbands (since they usually are going to pick someone who is an intellectual/career equal), thus many end up not ever having the family. How unfair is that?!
I think it is a lot harder for highly educated women to get married than those that are less so (i.e. high powered lawyer vs secretary). So, finding their spouses in school might increase their chances of actually getting married. Most women want a man that is at least in the same ballpark as far as education/career/intelligence.
^^^^ This.
I see nothing wrong with this advice. She's not telling young women to marry right out of college. She's telling them that college is a good place to meet your future spouse because of the likelihood of having a lot in common with them.
In college all my male classmates were highly intelligent, and most were ambitious, and well-brought-up young men. After college, I never had another opportunity to meet in one place so many appealing men who were single and interested in dating me.
Outside of college, it was very difficult to find a high concentration of highly desirable, single men. Although I worked in a male-dominated field for 10 years after college, most were were too busy with their careers to date, undesirable for one reason or another (e.g., educational level, values, personality, upbringing, interests), already had girlfriends, or had so many opportunities to meet beautiful women that they couldn't make up their minds. On campus, there's pretty much only other students to date. But out in the real world, there are a plethora of ways to meet people, like work, bars, clubs, parties, introductions from friends, co-workers, family, vacations, hobby groups, professional groups, etc.
Thus, time-wasting years go by with fruitless dating.
The problem with her advice is that not many men want to get married in their early twenties
Maybe Graduate school would be a bette choice to meet an intelligent guy
I do agree with her that sometimes you won't find a lot of intelligent guys in the workplace. I have been there myself surrounded by idiots. If you are an intelligent woman it is very hard to be attracted to an airhead even if he looks like George Clooney.
Heh. I briefly had a GF in college who made no apologies that her primary mission there was to get her MRS. And sure enough she did, courtesy of my roommate.
Anyway, I think the bigger picture is lost in the details. People seem focused on the "lock up your life partner in college" when IMO the real message for the specific target audience is "find a man who is your intellectual equal with equivalent ambition and equivalent career path." And in that sense I think she's dead-on. I also think she underestimates the ability of these particularly driven women to find equally driven men later in life in their career and social circles after graduation, but then again I've never really been where she has so what would I know.
Heh. I briefly had a GF in college who made no apologies that her primary mission there was to get her MRS. And sure enough she did, courtesy of my roommate.
Anyway, I think the bigger picture is lost in the details. People seem focused on the "lock up your life partner in college" when IMO the real message for the specific target audience is "find a man who is your intellectual equal with equivalent ambition and equivalent career path." And in that sense I think she's dead-on. I also think she underestimates the ability of these particularly driven women to find equally driven men later in life in their career and social circles after graduation, but then again I've never really been where she has so what would I know.
I honestly think that society might be better off and more healthy overall, if women (and men) married much younger than they do today -- marrying at 18-22 in fact might be ideal. If our foremothers and forefathers of the more distant past did it with higher rates of successful marriages and less divorces, why question something that has worked previously, historically speaking?
I absolutely agree. Biologically/reproductively it makes more sense, and because marriage encourages monogamy it is also a healthier lifestyle. Less sexual partners = less risk.
Also, from a financial standpoint, marrying young makes sense. You can build your wealth together while establishing a strong foundational relationship.
Marriage is dying in this country, and it makes me so upset. The children are suffering because of it. And we have these young adults with severe self-entitlement issues. Working on a marriage teaches so many soft skills - communication, compassion, understanding, how to compromise. Giving up and going solo or jumping from one relationship to the next is not healthy, IMO.
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