Susan Patton, Princeton '77, wrote a letter to the Princetonian campus newspaper in 2013 advising women to find their husbands in the fertile pastures of the Princeton campus because they would never again find the concentration of men worthy of them, men intelligent, driven, competent, daring and quality enough to qualify as spouse material.
Happy Hunting Grounds
Of course, uproar ensued,
What she was saying was unromantic, of course, but to her mind, eminently practical--as a matchmaker in the 19th century Jewish shtetls might have said, you are looking for quality and potential. Love is just so hopelessly romantic and really, a big con.
Ms. Patton argued that once women left Princeton to swim in a sea diluted by lesser lights, and pursued a career there would be far diminished chances of meeting Mr. Right.
Susan Patton, Princeton '77
The storm she provoked had much to do with the idea that the Ivy League, and not just the Ivy League, but Princeton, was peopled by people who thought themselves superior to others much as British aristocracy thought itself peopled by superior people selected in the case of the Brits not by meritocracy but by bloodlines, which, as in race horses, simply bred for the proper traits. The Brits thought themselves selected by God; the Princeton crowd was selected by the SAT exam.
Of course, she was writing at a time when Michelle Obama (Princeton '85) was calling the White House home, and she managed to fine a pretty good husband who did not go to Princeton, but then again, she was Black and somehow I do not think Ms. Patton was thinking much about Black Princeton women when she gave her advice.
In 2013, likely significantly more than half of the women graduating Princeton went on to graduate school, if not immediately, then eventually, where, very possibly another happy hunting ground for husbands, pre selected for quality might prevail. So maybe Princeton women did not need to pull the trigger quite so soon.
When the Phantom went to college, age 17-22, he was in no frame of mind to consider marrying anyone; he was simply too young and inexperienced. In fact, the very experience of having a college girlfriend convinced him marriage was a very unsound idea. As the years passed, it struck him that there was "love," or more accurately, women and sex, which had to do with desire, and sometimes even emotion, and then there was the marriage contract, where you negotiated with a woman for a long-term partnership which committed you to share child raising (a very expensive commitment), home buying, wealth building, vacation planning, heath care and obligations for family gatherings, weddings, funerals etc.
Women, it was pretty clear did not look at men, at least in the world of the hospital culture in which the Phantom lived, in the same way men looked at women. Men looked at women as sex objects, who got boring quickly if they turned out to be dumb. Women looked at men as a source of economic advancement, of social security, much the way women in Jane Austen's time did. Among hospital women, there were more and less promising males--surgeons were going to be richer than physicians, and some specialists were going to be richer than others--better find a cardiologist than a pediatrician.
Which is not to say personality did not matter, or kindness or intelligence or humor, but basically women could find a lot more signs of all that in a guy who was going to be rich.
Terri Gibbs
There was that Terri Gibbs song, which echoed Marilyn Monroe's "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend," but for Gibbs it was "Rich Man."
"My mamma said girl I can see that you're a woman
There's something that I want you to know
You got to get yourself a rich man
You got to marry you a rich man
You gotta live your life if you wanna be a wife
I know you got to have love
But it's just as easy lovin' you a rich man
You got to get yourself a rich man
If you're a poor man's wife
You'll live a poor man's life
You can never get your hands on a dime
And you can sing the blues
And you can pay your dues but you can never pay the rent on time
But there ain't no reason for doing without
If you're married to the man who's got the dollar in his hand."
So, in one sense, Ms. Patton had it right: Marriage is not about romance, but it is a practical partnership with a person you project just might grow on you, but at least who won't bore you and leave you asking yourself: What did I get myself into here?
What was I thinking?
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