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_How to Pick a Mate_
HOW TO
PICK A MATE
_THE GUIDE
TO A HAPPY MARRIAGE_
BY
DR. CLIFFORD R. ADAMS
_Associate Professor of Psychology and Director of the Marriage
Counseling Service, Pennsylvania State College. Member of the
American Association of Marriage Counselors. Director of the
Woman’s Home Companion Marriage Clinic._
AND
VANCE O. PACKARD
_Staff Writer, The American Magazine_
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY, INC.
1946
_Copyright, 1946, by E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc._
_All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A._
FIRST EDITION
NO PART of this book may be reproduced in any form without
permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer
who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review
written for inclusion in magazine or newspaper or radio broadcast.
_To_
OUR TWO DAUGHTERS
_and_
OUR TWO SONS
_Who Have Yet to Pick Their Mates_
Contents
PAGE
LIST OF TESTS 9
FOREWORD 11
CHAPTER
I. WHY MARRY, ANYHOW? 15
II. YOUR CHANCES OF GETTING A MATE YOU’LL LIKE 23
III. ARE YOU READY FOR MARRIED LOVE? 38
IV. IS IT LOVE--OR INFATUATION? 47
V. GROWING UP SEXUALLY 55
VI. SEX ADVENTURING 63
VII. DO YOU FRIGHTEN POSSIBLE MATES AWAY? 74
VIII. ATTRACTING THE ONE YOU WANT 83
IX. IS THE ONE YOU WANT THE ONE YOU NEED? 91
X. CRUCIAL TRAITS FOR A HAPPY MARRIAGE 98
XI. TEST YOUR MATE AND YOURSELF 107
XII. NOW, SEE HOW YOU MATCH AS A COUPLE! 124
XIII. BEWARE OF MIXED MARRIAGES 139
XIV. NINE DANGEROUS CHARACTERS 146
XV. PEOPLE WHO SHOULD NOT MARRY AT ALL 156
XVI. WILL A JOB UNDERMINE YOUR MARRIAGE? 165
XVII. THE VETERAN AS A MATE 174
XVIII. SO YOU AGREE TO MARRY: WHAT NEXT? 183
XIX. GETTING READY FOR MARRIED INTIMACY 189
XX. GETTING OFF TO A GOOD START 195
AFTER THOUGHTS 204
APPENDIX A: SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 206
APPENDIX B: MARRIAGE COUNSELING AGENCIES 211
INDEX 213
List of Tests
CHAPTER PAGE
II. 1. _What Is Your Expectancy of Marriage?_ 35
III. 2. _Are You Old Enough to Marry?_ 44
III. 3. _Are You Grown Up Emotionally?_ 44
IV. 4. _Are You Really in Love?_ 52
VI. 5. _Are You Warm or Cool by Nature?_ 72
VII. 6. _Do You Have a Negative or Positive Personality?_ 81
VIII. 7. _What Traits to Look for in Mates (check list)_ 87
X. 8. _Ten Basic Background Questions_ 100
XI. 9. _Sociability_ 107
XI. 10. _Conformity_ 108
XI. 11. _Tranquillity_ 109
XI. 12. _Dependability_ 110
XI. 13. _Stability_ 111
XI. 14. _Standards and Ideals_ 112
XI. 15. _Steadiness_ 113
XI. 16. _Flexibility_ 114
XI. 17. _Seriousness_ 114
XI. 18. _Family Background_ 115
XI. 19. _Prediction of Individual Marital Happiness
(Composite)_ 116
XII. 20. _Do You Match?_ 127
XII. 21. _Are You Well Mated?_ 136
XIV. 22. _Are You Too Jealous?_ 154
XV. 23. _Is the Mate a Neurotic?_ 163
_Appendix A. Books You May Wish to Read_ 206
_Appendix B. Marriage Counseling Agencies_ 211
Foreword
As far as we know this is the first time anyone has written a book
attempting to put mate selection on a sensible basis, despite the
fact that sooner or later almost everybody selects one.
A good many people resent the idea of an outsider telling _them_
how they should pick a mate. They think it smacks of meddling.
Marriage is something sacred and personal. It should not be done
according to rules. We heartily sympathize.
Unfortunately, however, marriages are _not_ made in Heaven. Usually
people marry by hunch or impulse ... or because their parents think
it is a good match ... or because they get themselves so deeply
involved romantically that marrying seems the only proper thing to
do.
Too frequently such methods merely mess up a couple of people’s
lives. More than a third of all the millions of marriages
undertaken in the last ten years are in trouble. Many are already
dissolved. Many more soon will be.
A great deal of research and counseling has now been done in the
field of marriage, and the findings validated. At Penn State, for
example, hundreds of couples who were tested before marriage at the
Marriage Counseling Service are checked periodically after marriage
to find how they are making out. Of all the marriages which the
service predicted would be successful, not one has yet ended in
divorce or separation. Most of the people who went ahead despite
the clinic’s cautions are already in serious trouble or have been
divorced.
As a result of many such investigations, reliable information is
available on the kinds of people who make the best mates, and on
the causes of marriage success and failure.
In this book we have tried to include those findings which should
be most helpful and interesting to all people involved in love or
marriage--but particularly to people who sooner or later will be
taking unto themselves a mate. It is not our intention to lay down
a set of rules for people to follow. But we hope that after reading
this book you will be more enlightened in your hunches than you
might be otherwise, and be a much happier and more desirable mate
yourself!
_How to Pick a Mate_
_Chapter I_
Why Marry, Anyhow?
Mating is as old as Eve. In fact it is the oldest and most popular
custom ever devised by mankind. Even in the most isolated tribes
that explorers have uncovered on this globe adult males pair up
with females to live together as man and wife.
In many areas of the world, it is true, marriages are still
arranged by the elders, often at a neat financial profit to the
bride’s parents. Freedom of choice in mating is a newfangled idea.
And in Madagascar the groom is warned at the wedding that he can
beat the bride all he pleases, but if he breaks any bones or gouges
any eyes she has a perfect right to go home to mother. Yet even
there mating is popular.
Though marriage is the most universal institution known to man
increasing numbers of Americans are shunning it by divorce or
otherwise. About ten per cent of our marriageable men have become
unbudgeable bachelors. The number of women who are choosing careers
to marriage is soaring. Moreover there are 1,500,000 men and women
in America who tried marriage and are now living apart in divorce.
Many others were divorced, then remarried.
Thus “Why marry, anyhow?” is today a fair question. So let’s face
right at the start the main reasons why people do not marry, or
stay married.
Many people do not marry because they don’t relish the idea of
giving up their freedom, their independence. Some men do not like
the idea of being “saddled” with family responsibilities and
being “tied down” to one woman. Likewise, some women have become
so accustomed to living alone--and are so reluctant to give up
careers--that they hesitate to give up their independence, until it
is too late.
Many other girls and men do not marry because they are too
particular. Often they have a “phantasy ideal” of the mate they
want and can’t find such an interested party in real life. Girls
for example often sigh that they want a man “tall, dark and
handsome--and graying at the temples.” Without realizing it at
least a quarter of all girls yearn for a man who looks like their
own father. And a quarter of the men pick someone who looks vaguely
like their own mother.
There are still other people who don’t marry because they lack
a decent opportunity. Girls who choose nursing as a career, for
example, cut their marriage prospects at least fifty per cent. It
is much the same for librarians and social workers. In fact a girl
can reduce her chances of marriage merely by going to a girls’
college.
Then there is a large group who do not marry because they have
been disappointed in love--perhaps an early love affair ended in
disappointment or grief. It produced a psychological scar that
prevented the person from achieving happiness through marriage
with anyone else. The death of Ann Rutledge shook Abraham Lincoln
so profoundly that though he finally married years later, for
appearances’ sake, he was a miserable husband. A boy who imagines
himself passionately in love and then is jilted by a girl who
doesn’t even let him down gently may lose faith and crawl into a
psychological shell in his relations with other women.
One college girl became enamored, during her sophomore year, of
a prominent man-about-campus. She came from a fine Philadelphia
family and was an attractive, sincere girl. But she was very
naïve. This man began rushing her. He took her to parties at his
fraternity, took her for several moonlight rides in his roadster,
and told her she was the girl he had always dreamed of. Within
three weeks she had lost her virginity. In a few more weeks he
had lost interest and was off to make new conquests, and she came
to the sickening realization that he had merely been exploiting
her love for physical pleasure. Disillusioned, she had to change
colleges to keep from facing her friends. She did not tell this
story to the counselors at the Penn State Marriage Counseling
Service (“Compatibility Clinic”) until two years later. During
those two years she had been so crushed and full of bitterness that
she had not let another man touch or even kiss her.
Occasionally men and women do not marry because they have family
responsibilities--perhaps a widowed mother or younger orphaned
brothers and sisters--which make them feel they can’t afford, or
have no right, to take on a mate.
Still others have physical handicaps. There are some handicaps,
of course, that are severe enough to be a real handicap, like the
loss of both arms, but more often the handicaps are not serious
in themselves. They are serious because the possessor magnifies
them in his mind and begins feeling inadequate and inferior. The
same applies to a person who thinks he is ugly. Irregular facial
features in themselves are never a serious handicap if their
possessor has self-confidence and a pleasant personality.
The main reason why people do not marry, however, is that they have
an unhealthy attitude which makes it virtually impossible for them
to adjust themselves happily to thoughts of marriage. They are full
of fears about the obligations that marriage may bring.
Some are too selfish or too egocentric to be able to compromise;
and in marriage as in any partnership the partners must be able to
sacrifice their private desires for the common cause. Marriage is
no place for prima donnas.
Other poorly adjusted persons are incapable of accepting the many
responsibilities that go with marriage. Perhaps their mother or
father tied them down so closely as a child that they never had
a chance to develop their own feeling of self-sufficiency and
independence. There are parents who cannot turn their children
loose. They object to dating until the youngsters have become so
old that learning to get along with the other sex is difficult.
Such children have a fixation for the parents and cannot see
another person entering the picture as a possible substitute or
replacement. This is called the Oedipus complex and it is no
bogey dreamed up by psychologists. A boy may not marry because
he is still jealously in “love” with his own mother. A girl may
not marry because she is in “love” with her father. This kind of
fixation is made more acute when the parent is selfish or lonely
and builds a network around the child which makes escape impossible.
There are some people who are suspicious or jealous by nature.
Their emotional instability usually frightens away prospective
mates.
Many other people, particularly girls, have an unhealthy attitude
toward marriage because they are frightened by the physical
intimacies that go with marriage. A 29-year-old wife who had been
married four years confessed recently that she dreaded the thought
of physical intimacy with her husband. She had moved to another
room and was in a rebellious mood. This wife unconsciously revealed
a clue to her coldness when she related remarks her mother had made
to her during girlhood. The mother had talked of her own agonies
during the girl’s birth and had told how the process had injured
her internally. The mother had talked of physical intimacy as one
of the burdens a wife has to bear. One night, when the girl had
been thus conditioned, a date stopped his car on a side road and
tried to caress her. She was terrified. Now, twelve years later and
formally married, she was still on guard.
The war gave many young people an unhealthy attitude toward
marriage. A desire for a “last fling” impelled many of them
to promiscuous behavior that has left them with psychological
scars. Some men saw so many “loose” women near their stations and
embarkation ports (and frequently had affairs themselves with such
women) that their attitude toward all women was cheapened. Other
young people--both male and female--were separated so long from
contact with the opposite sex that they developed--or feared they
had developed--unnatural feelings toward members of the same sex;
or thought they lost the knack of making themselves seem attractive
to girls or men, whichever the opposite may be.
A good many veterans saw so much of war and its destruction that
they became cynical of human life and pessimistic about the future.
This put them in an extremely poor mood to think of mating.
Yet to millions of other veterans war made marriage seem terribly
attractive. After leading a shifting existence where nothing seemed
real or permanent, the lasting, unchanging things in life appeared
more significant than ever before. Marriage, ideally, is one of the
most permanent things in life. It gives a person a chance to sink
roots.
This brings us to the other side of the picture: why people _do_
marry. There are thirty million married couples in America today,
and they didn’t get married just because it is the customary thing
to do.
Marriage _must_ have something to offer. If you doubt it consider
these facts:
--Married people normally live longer than single people.
According to the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company report
of 1937, twice as many single men from thirty to forty-five
die as married men in the same age bracket. For women between
thirty and sixty-five the married women have a ten per cent
advantage over the single women. Twice as many widowers die
as do men who remain married.
--Fewer married people go to jail than single people.
--Fewer go crazy.
--Fewer commit suicide.
These facts would certainly indicate that married people are
happier, better adjusted persons than unmarried persons, despite
all the tales about henpecked husbands and browbeaten wives.
Then there are some very practical, hard-boiled reasons why it pays
to marry.
For one thing it is cheaper for two people to live together than to
live separately. It costs only two-thirds as much.
By marrying, a man becomes a better employment risk. Married men
usually are regarded as more steady, more trustworthy employees
than single men. This is logical. Marriage exerts a stabilizing
influence on most men. An employer can assume that since a
married man has taken on the responsibilities of a family he
is a better risk than a man who has shown no ability to assume
responsibilities. Another point is that the married man is less apt
to leave a good job than a single man.
Furthermore a married person is regarded more favorably socially
than a bachelor or spinster. This is not just a “ganging up”
of spouses against anyone not similarly coupled, though that
may be a factor. It’s a fact that there is a greater feeling of
belongingness to the community for the married person than for the
bachelor or spinster. A married man is better able to entertain
acquaintances in his own home. And right or wrong most people
feel there is something a bit unnatural about an adult remaining
unmarried. Psychiatrists agree that except in exceptional cases
women who live alone will become neurotic and frustrated. Living
alone is an abnormal state for a woman. (She overcomes this
hazard only by accepting her fate realistically and setting out
intelligently to find enrichment and satisfaction in life.)
Married people are less lonely than single people because they have
someone with whom to share life’s dull as well as exciting moments
and to share their problems and hopes and ambitions.
Also married couples who raise families frequently have an
insurance against old age--the knowledge that in their growing
children there will be someone to take care of them if necessary.
Life is also more comfortable if you are married than if single, at
least for a man. It provides him with home cooking in his own home
and someone to keep his socks in order.
A basic argument for marriage is that it offers a logical division
of labor. Imagine how much more complicated and inconvenient
life would be if men had to do their own cooking and sewing, and
women--all women--had to compete with men for a livelihood!
Finally marriage offers a legalized way to achieve sexual
satisfaction. Men and women can receive relief from their bodily
tensions without the terrible feelings of guilt, anxiety and
remorse that often accompany unmarried love. That’s something.
Modern psychology recognizes that sexual satisfaction is more
than a physiological process of reproducing one’s kind. It is a
psychologically satisfying activity and releases many nervous
tensions as well as tensions brought about by hormonal or glandular
needs.
Those then are the obvious, practical reasons why marriage is so
universally popular. But beyond those are some important but less
understood cravings which marriage satisfies.
--Beyond the desire for sex satisfaction, for example, is
the yearning of both men and women to share the love and
affection of somebody of the opposite sex, someone who takes
a genuine interest in them. This sometimes is called a need
for sexually colored companionship. This is why married
people don’t feel the need to run around to shows and parties
the way single people do. They have their own companionship
within the family. Mark Twain, in his amusing “Extracts from
Adam’s Diary” showed the bond created by such companionship
when he quoted Adam as reminiscing:
“At first I thought Eve talked too much but ... after all
these years I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the
beginning. It is better to live outside the Garden with her
than inside it without her.... Wheresoever she is, there is
Eden.”
--A desire for mastery on the part of most men and a desire
to be led on the part of most women is another psychological
motive that is satisfied by marriage. It is the thrill of
mastery that causes a youth to careen dangerously down the
highway at eighty miles an hour or to ride a horse at a
break-neck gallop.
--There is a desire for pride that is satisfied by saying “my
husband,” or “my wife,” or “my oldest kid.”
--There is a desire for security, a need both real and
psychological, that afflicts all of us. We all like to know
that there is someone who will look after us when we are
sick, someone to comfort us when we are grieved, someone to
help us when we are weary. Women particularly feel this need
for security. In fact some observers who work a great deal
in testing the reactions of women to the problems of life
say that in women this yearning for security overshadows
everything else. Women feel the need for security so much
more keenly because, if nothing else, they are the “weaker”
sex. They are more dependent on men for their livelihood.
Our returning veterans feel an intense need for another kind of
security which marriage can give. After years of uncertainty,
shifting, and tearing down of life and property they desperately
want to get a hold on something permanent, and to many of them
marriage looks like the very best way to do it.
--For much the same reasons veterans want to raise families.
After so much destruction they want to build, they want to
create life, life bearing their own likeness, life that will
continue after they are gone. Watching and guiding one’s own
children while they grow up is one of the greatest pleasures
of marriage. A couple who deliberately abstains from having
children is a selfish couple. Surveys show they mostly do
it out of selfishness, the desire of the wife for a career
or “dislike for children.” These reasons are those we would
expect from maladjusted people. Certainly by voluntarily
remaining childless they miss one of the greatest chances to
achieve a happy marriage.
By achieving a happy marriage and having children many people
make up for the frustrations and disappointments they have
received from life, their dissatisfaction with their job and
their own childhood. Children bring them compensation for
their own failures.
--Finally, marriage enables two people to work together
in setting up common goals and--by dreaming, planning,
struggling--to achieve those goals. Perhaps the goal is
to build a home or take a vacation trip to South America
together or to put a son through college. The specific goals
are not important. The enrichment comes from the two people’s
merging their hopes and efforts toward one mutually-desired
goal.
Getting married is one of the biggest steps a person takes in
life. In fact, for most people life boils down to coping with
three big problems:
--Learning to get along with people.
--Choosing a career and succeeding in it.
--Picking a mate and living happily thereafter.
The three are interdependent. Marriage counselors have noticed the
significant fact that the individual who makes friends readily,
who likes his work and is successful in it, is also the person who
tends to choose an excellent mate for himself and work out with
that mate a happy marriage.
_Chapter II_
Your Chances of Getting a Mate You’ll Like
First, you might ask, what are your chances of getting a mate of
any kind? If you are a man, and are interested, you can be almost
one hundred per cent certain you will marry. More than ten per cent
of the eligible men today won’t marry, but that will largely be due
to the fact that they prefer to remain bachelors.
If you are a girl the chances that you will marry are not quite as
good. At the start of the war about thirteen per cent of the girls
were failing to marry. The prospect now is that for several years
after the war about fourteen or fifteen per cent will fail. It will
be a good market for men.
Girls in some age brackets will be hit harder than others, and
we sympathize with the girls past twenty-five who feel they were
passing the peak of the eligibility curve for marriage while many
of the best male prospects were still away in the armed forces.
These girls have cause for concern. The surplus of grown women over
men--which is something new in our population--has been increased
by war casualties. And the number of men who prefer bachelorhood
is apt to increase from ten per cent at present to perhaps fifteen
per cent because the older a single man becomes the less he thinks
about marriage. This war has created a great many “old” single men.
It is estimated that between two million and five million of the
marriageable women in America today will never marry. Sociologists
are already worrying about this “lost generation” of our women
between twenty and thirty-five, with those in their late twenties
presumably hit the hardest.
You may ask when a girl reaches the peak of her eligibility
for marriage. In normal years the peak is between nineteen and
twenty-one, and the curve declines markedly after the twenty-fifth
birthday. Here are the chances for men and women to marry by
certain ages:
CHANCES OF WHITE MALES AND WHITE FEMALES BEING MARRIED BY VARIOUS
AGES (1940 CENSUS)
CHANCES OF CHANCES OF CHANCES OF MARRYING AT SOME
BY AGE BEING MARRIED BEING MARRIED PARTICULAR YEAR OF AGE
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Men Women Men Women
14 1 in 1000 3 in 1000 1 in 1000 3 in 1000
15 2 ” 12 ” 1 ” 9 ”
16 3 ” 39 ” 1 ” 27 ”
17 7 ” 90 ” 4 ” 51 ”
18 21 ” 177 ” 14 ” 87 ”
19 54 ” 270 ” 33 ” 93 ”
20 109 ” 372 ” 55 ” 102 ”
21 190 ” 456 ” 81 ” 84 ”
22 272 ” 538 ” 82 ” 82 ”
23 371 ” 613 ” 99 ” 75 ”
24 457 ” 671 ” 86 ” 58 ”
25 531 ” 714 ” 74 ” 43 ”
26 592 ” 749 ” 61 ” 35 ”
27 650 ” 780 ” 58 ” 31 ”
28 694 ” 799 ” 44 ” 19 ”
29 738 ” 823 ” 44 ” 24 ”
30 748 ” 822 ” 10 ” 1 ”
31 790 ” 853 ” 42 ” 30 ”
32 791 ” 853 ” 1 ” 1 ”
33 814 ” 870 ” 23 ” 17 ”
34 828 ” 874 ” 14 ” 4 ”
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The odds for men show that only about one in ten marries before
he is twenty-one; one in three marry at ages twenty-one to
twenty-five; about three to ten marry between twenty-five and
thirty, and about one in ten marries between thirty and thirty-five.
A factor unfavorable to the older girls, past twenty-five, is that
as men become older they tend to marry increasingly younger girls.
Normally, for example, a man of twenty-five will marry a girl of
twenty-two, whereas a man of thirty-one will probably marry a girl
of twenty-five. That’s why girls in the present twenty-five to
thirty-five group may be hardest hit by the war. One encouraging
possibility, however, is that veterans are looking for more wisdom
and maturity in their brides than civilians of the same age usually
do. There have been a good many reports of veterans marrying girls
five and ten years their senior.
Idealistically, the best age for a girl to marry is from twenty-one
to twenty-seven, and for a man from twenty-five to thirty.
Of all women who do marry, about fifty-six per cent are married
by their twenty-fifth birthday, about eighty-four per cent by
their thirtieth birthday and about ninety-five per cent by their
thirty-fifth birthday. After thirty-five a woman has to get busy if
she wants to marry!
Thirty-five is when an unmarried woman can no longer consider
herself a “young maid.”
The marriage prospects for girls today would not be quite so
unfavorable if our men would all seek mates. As it is, with from
ten to fifteen per cent preferring to remain single, at least
a million girls will not have an opportunity to marry. As far
as we can gather the reason behind this masculine perversity is
that boys, unlike girls, are not indoctrinated with the idea that
marriage should be one of their big goals in life.
But why, you may ask, are there more eligible girls than men in
America? The imbalance caused by the war is not the only reason.
Here are some other reasons for the shortage of males that looms:
--Men die younger than women. The “weaker sex” is actually
the tougher sex when it comes to reaching a ripe old age.
--Our male surplus of immigrants has been about used up.
Immigration is a form of pioneering and has been considered
primarily a task of man. When the flow of immigrants was
heavy it accounted for many thousands of our male surplus.
Now the flow has dwindled to a trickle.
--America is no longer a “young” nation. And of course the
older our population becomes, the more feminine it becomes
for the reasons mentioned above. There are still more boy
babies born in America than girl babies (about 105 boys per
hundred girls) but because the males die faster--both by
natural causes and by accidents--the males slip into the
minority now after the age of twenty-five.
War affects marriage in very peculiar ways. During the initial
phase of World War II, marriages increased at a spectacular rate.
This probably was due to the increasing prosperity (prosperity
increases both marriages and divorces!) and by the psychological
incentives to mate as a result of war. These include not only the
impulses to elude the draft, but the yearning of a boy to keep some
visible contact with home and the yearning of the girl to have some
concrete commitment from a man when so many of them were leaving
the community to go to war.
By 1942, 1,800,000 marriages took place in the country, the highest
number in history. Then the rate started dropping off as men became
more scarce, so that by 1944 the number of marriages was only
1,440,000. In 1945 the trend was changing. Judging from events
after World War I, the postwar years will see a spurt in marriages
that may take the rate to nearly two million a year for a couple of
years. But that won’t change the fact that a good many girls still
will not have a chance to marry.
But even if you do marry, what are the chances you will get a mate
you like?
The answer depends a great deal on who you are. We can assure you
that such mates will not come automatically. Right now there are at
least a million married couples who are waiting to get a divorce.
Millions of other couples tolerate each other but are not happy by
any standards we could apply to them.
Many of the unsuccessful matches were “war marriages” hastily made.
A study made after the first war, of marriages hastily contracted
from 1916 to 1920 show that those marriages were less happy for
both men and women than those contracted before the war. Another
study showed that the marriages undertaken immediately after men
came back from World War I were not--on an average--as happy as
they would have been normally. The same will be true for many of
the hurriedly contracted marriages in 1946 and 1947.
These studies substantiate the fact that much greater likelihood
of mismating exists when marriages are hastily contracted, and
especially when contracted at a time of high emotional excitement.
As this book is written one marriage in five is ending in
divorce--and as we get further into the postwar years the rate will
probably rise to at least one failure in every four marriages.
Furthermore, if the long-range trends continue the divorce rate
will be one divorce for every two marriages by 1975! Hollywood
stars, and physicians in some states, are already close to that
rate. That’s pretty depressing to contemplate when you consider
that fifteen years ago the rate was one failure in fourteen
marriages.
Perhaps the one encouraging aspect of the growing male shortage
is that it may slow down the divorce rate. Divorces occur most
frequently when men are plentiful. When men are scarce women tend
to hang on to what they have and need to be provoked before they
will fly off to Reno.
Why is the divorce rate rising at such an ominous rate? Admittedly
there are deeper reasons than the war for the trend. Civilization,
in becoming more complex, puts greater strains and stresses on
marriage. Unhappy married couples are not held together as much as
they used to be by fears inspired by hell-and-damnation religion.
Our movies and soap operas present marriage in a fantastically
unreal light. Finally, it seems that our standards for marriage
happiness are now so low that people assume a couple is happy as
long as the husband doesn’t beat his wife openly.
You may be interested to know that all the trends indicate that
more divorced men remarry than do divorced women. In spite of the
fact that each divorce separates a couple, in 1940 there were twice
as many feminine divorcees who had not remarried as there were
unmarried male divorces. The records also disclose the interesting
fact that only about ten per cent of the women getting divorces ask
alimony, and that only six per cent get it.
Your chances of getting a mate you will like are even affected
by your sex. If you are a girl your chances are not as good as
if you were a man. This is largely due to the fact that a girl
cannot gracefully take the initiative in stalking a mate who looks
attractive to her. Women enjoy being pursued, but men still don’t!
They don’t want anything that seems too easy to win. If the woman
takes the initiative--at least if she takes it conspicuously--the
world will think her aggressive, and unladylike. She will be
thought “common,” for instance, if she goes to the phone and asks a
boy for a date or if she proposes marriage. Despite the progress
of feminine emancipation during this century, and especially during
World War II, this is still a man’s world. And probably feminism
will be on the defensive after the war when the veterans return
and many of the women will be expected to retire gracefully to the
kitchens. At any rate, our present moral standards apparently make
it much more difficult for a girl to win some possible mate who
interests her than it is for a man.
Few of our younger people realize it but there are also a host of
other factors that often limit the number of acceptable mates they
are able to choose from.
Marriage counselors use the phrase “assortative mating” to describe
the way two people of the opposite sex pair up on the basis of
being pretty much like each other and living in much the same
neighborhood. The term was first used to describe the way animals
mate on the basis of similar size and color.
Today’s men and girls often set up criteria in selecting a mate
that narrow their possible choices more than they realize. A man
often has some pretty specific ideas on the kind of girl he wants
to marry, and the girl has similar ideas about her husband-to-be.
The chances of a person getting a mate he will like becomes less
and less as he raises his qualifications.
In the early days of American life, when civilization was much
simpler than it is today--and when people differed less in their
social and economic status--a girl or man usually could find among
five acquaintances someone suitable for marriage. The situation is
decidedly different today. One authority in this field estimates
that a girl, for example, needs to know twenty or twenty-five young
men in order that she may have sufficient range to find someone
eligible for her needs.
Let’s look at some of the little-considered factors that limit your
choice.
* * * * *
HOW OLD MUST YOUR MATE BE? Many people who are looking for a mate
think it is bad for the bride to be older than the groom. The girl
is especially sensitive about this because she feels she may be
losing prestige. Actually such marriages usually turn out to be
happier than average because the girl is usually more eager to
prove herself a good wife and is less apt to be a clinging vine;
but that doesn’t change the fact that some people still frown on
such marriages.
Society also frowns on matches where there is a great difference
in age. For example marriages where the man is ten years older
are viewed with alarm. For reasons not too well understood,
marriages in which the husband is from four to seven years older
than his bride are less happy than those involving any other age
differences. However, if the man is eight or more years older, no
special handicap seems to be involved.
Taken as a whole the happiest--and most socially approved--marriages
are those in which the man is one to two years older.
* * * * *
HOW EDUCATED MUST YOUR MATE BE? All the studies that have been
made of marriage show that as one’s educational level rises,
an individual tends more and more to make a rational--and less
emotional--choice of a mate. The educated man has a greater range
of choice than the educated woman, because he is much more willing
to marry under his educational level whereas a woman--again for
reasons of prestige--is usually reluctant to do so. If she goes to
college, she feels she has no choice but to restrict her selection
to college men. By so confining herself and by leading a more
cloistered life than her cousin who never went past high school, a
college girl definitely reduces her chances of marrying. Whereas in
the past nearly ninety per cent of our women have married, it is
estimated that only about seventy-five per cent of college women
have married!
* * * * *
HOW MUCH MONEY MUST YOUR MATE HAVE? If you have money yourself
or have it in your family you are more apt to make a hard-headed
choice for a mate than one who has little money. He will marry
more spontaneously. If you think back you may remember that during
the depression of 1929-33 people of high economic status postponed
marrying until more stable times whereas the people with small
incomes went right on marrying, if they could possibly manage it.
Generally people tend to marry pretty much into their own economic
class. The girl who was raised in the poor section of town and is
now working as a sales clerk in a five-and-ten store may yearn to
marry a sophisticated man from a wealthy family, but that is not
the kind of mate she needs. It is doubtful that she could be happy
with him because their differences are too great.
There are exceptions, of course. Occasionally we all read about,
and cheer, a news report of a modern Cinderella but we usually
frown when we read of the opposite: of a rich girl marrying a poor
man. That somehow seems abnormal to us. The girl may lose caste. A
man of moderate means who himself married a debutante expressed his
views on such arrangements however when he said to us: “Never marry
for money. But it’s just as easy to fall in love with a rich girl!”
* * * * *
HOW ABOUT THE MATE’S NATIONAL BACKGROUND AND RELIGION? Are you an
American of Italian extraction who would not consider marrying a
girl of Swedish background? Or are you a Catholic who would not
think of marrying anyone but another Catholic? You may have good
reasons for your exclusiveness but the fact remains that your field
has been narrowed.
* * * * *
HOW IS YOUR JOB AFFECTING YOUR PROSPECTS? People tend to marry
mates who live conveniently near and who have similar interests.
(About a fifth of all married couples meet each other at work.) A
school teacher, for example, is much more likely to know school
teachers of the opposite sex than to know physicians of the
opposite sex. Yet many occupations are such that far more of one
sex enter them than is true of the other. For example, there are
normally nearly five women teachers to one man teacher; seven or
eight feminine librarians to one male librarian; some twenty-five
or thirty women in nursing to each man in somewhat similar work.
Is it any wonder that the rate of marriage among school teachers,
librarians and among nurses is much lower than average? Girls who
choose nursing for a career cut their marriage prospects by at
least 50 percent.
* * * * *
FINALLY, HOW IS GEOGRAPHY AFFECTING YOUR PROSPECTS FOR MATES?
Though the conditions of World War II broadened the matrimonial
horizon of many men and girls as they moved about the country the
fact remains that location is an important factor in confining the
choice of millions of people.
In a study of several thousand marriages in Philadelphia it was
discovered that four out of five young people there selected their
mates from within their own city. In one out of three of the
marriages the couple had lived within five blocks of each other
before marriage.
Looking at the country as a whole, some towns and sections offer
better marriage prospects than others. This is a little known
fact. For example, the cities of New England offer the poorest
possibilities for young women to marry of any section of the
country. This is mainly because the textile industries in that area
attract so many more women than men. Of the thirty United States
cities offering the poorest opportunities for marriage for women,
twenty-two are in New England. And of the thirty offering the best
opportunities for women, about half are in Michigan, Ohio and
Northern Indiana, where the automotive industries--which attract
far more men than women--are located.
It is interesting to note that during World War II the marriage
rate increased very rapidly in areas with new war industries
requiring a great number of men--shipbuilding, aircraft, metal
working. In Baltimore, the marriage rate went up nearly forty per
cent; in Hartford, important in aviation, it went up twenty-five
per cent.
Areas that consistently favor girls by providing a surplus of
eligible men are the Far West and the Southwest, particularly
Texas. The Deep South is much less favorable.
Where does your state stand on the ratio of eligible men to
eligible women? The typical American male marries at about
twenty-five and a half and the typical female at twenty-two and
a half, or about three years earlier. Thus perhaps the fairest
comparison would be to take the single men between twenty-three and
twenty-eight and the single women between twenty and twenty-five.
The following table shows how each state rates in such a
comparison. It is based on the 1940 census.
NUMBER OF SINGLE WHITE MALES 23-28 YEARS OLD FOR EACH 100 SINGLE
WHITE FEMALES 20-25 YEARS OLD
Nevada 177.21 Indiana 97.96
Wyoming 164.66 Georgia 97.56
Idaho 130.61 Illinois 95.42
California 128.01 Minnesota 95.41
Arizona 127.09 Delaware 94.29
Montana 125.49 Missouri 94.28
Washington 121.78 Mississippi 94.20
Dist. of Col. 119.20 Maine 93.20
Oregon 116.82 Alabama 93.17
New Mexico 113.19 Iowa 91.83
Florida 111.39 New Jersey 91.12
Texas 109.17 Ohio 90.92
Vermont 107.50 New York 90.46
Virginia 106.64 Pennsylvania 90.17
Maryland 106.18 Tennessee 90.03
North Dakota 105.76 Nebraska 89.56
Colorado 102.59 Utah 89.23
Michigan 101.68 New Hampshire 89.14
Louisiana 101.61 Kansas 88.66
Kentucky 100.98 Connecticut 88.57
Wisconsin 100.82 South Carolina 87.55
Arkansas 99.24 North Carolina 86.35
West Virginia 99.12 Massachusetts 83.25
South Dakota 98.32 Rhode Island 82.61
Oklahoma 97.99
Nevada leads the list as the paradise for girls since there are 177
men there for each 100 girls. At the other end of the scale Rhode
Island is over-populated with females (due to its many textile
mills) and so is an unpromising place for girls to find a mate
but a fine place for men. There are one hundred girls for every
eighty-three men.
Notice that all of the first nine states offering the best
possibilities for girls are in the West, and that the five most
favorable states for men are in the East. Perhaps the old slogan
“Go West, young man, go West” might be revised to read “Go East,
young man; go West, young woman.”
There is another age range that needs consideration. That is, the
groups who have not married by the time most people marry. These
groups are the men between thirty and thirty-five and girls between
twenty-five and thirty. Both these groups need to get busy because
they face a very definite possibility of becoming crusty old
bachelors or disgruntled spinsters. Since men past thirty tend to
marry women who are more than three years younger than themselves
it might be valid to compare the number of girls twenty-five to
thirty to the men thirty to thirty-five. Here again the West is
the great land of opportunity for girls while the Carolinas and
the New England textile states are still less inviting to girls.
One interesting thing is that in the Southern states of Kentucky,
Virginia and Louisiana a girl’s ratio is pretty favorable up to
twenty-five years but after that they become definitely _not_ good
places to find a husband.
If we take all single men as a whole and compare them to the single
women, without regard to age, here is how the states seem to shape
up:
THE TEN BEST FOR WOMEN THE TEN POOREST FOR WOMEN
AND POOREST FOR MEN AND BEST FOR MEN
Wyoming Massachusetts
Montana Rhode Island
Idaho Connecticut
Washington New Hampshire
Arizona New Jersey
California New York
North Dakota Pennsylvania
Oregon Ohio
South Dakota North Carolina
Nevada Missouri
Of the ten best states for women all are west of the Mississippi,
and of the best states for men all but one is east of the
Mississippi.
While the states themselves are pretty good guides as to where to
go to pick a mate, the location within a particular state may be of
even greater importance. For example, in Virginia, Norfolk rates as
a fine place for a girl to find a husband but Richmond rates way
down the scale. Here is a comparison of the number of white, single
girls in the twenty-five to thirty age group and of the white,
single men aged thirty to thirty-five in our 106 cities having
a population of fifty thousand or more. (In such a comparison,
incidentally, virtually all of our cities show a surplus of older
girls over older men when those two age groups are compared. Here,
however, we are interested only in the _relative_ desirability of
cities.)
THE TWENTY BEST CITIES FOR THE TWENTY POOREST CITIES FOR
WOMEN AND POOREST FOR MEN WOMEN AND BEST FOR MEN
(in order) (in order)
San Diego, Cal. Madison, Wis.
San Francisco, Cal. Lincoln, Neb.
Norfolk, Va. Des Moines, Ia.
Miami, Fla. Jackson, Miss.
Long Beach, Cal. Evanston, Ill.
Los Angeles, Cal. Minneapolis, Minn.
Phoenix, Ariz. Wichita, Kans.
Oakland, Cal. St. Paul, Minn.
Tacoma, Wash. Nashville, Tenn.
Sacramento, Cal. Winston-Salem, N. C.
San Antonio, Tex. Knoxville, Tenn.
Houston, Tex. Grand Rapids, Mich.
Detroit, Mich. Fort Wayne, Ind.
Baltimore, Md. Salt Lake City, Utah
Pueblo, Colo. New Haven, Conn.
Peoria, Ill. Omaha, Nebr.
Mobile, Ala. Cleveland, Ohio
Trenton, N. J. Springfield, Ill.
Jacksonville, Fla. Montgomery, Ala.
Columbus, Ga. Hartford, Conn.
Girls on farms and in small towns may fret to get to the big
cities but their chances of marrying will be better in their rural
communities, where there are 104 men for every hundred women, than
in the cities where the ratio is ninety-six men per hundred girls.
Women’s colleges and all-male colleges may have their advantages
educationally but they can deprive you of the chance for normal
contacts with the opposite sex, and thus reduce your chances of
marrying.
To get a fairly accurate idea of just what your marriage expectancy
is, considering all factors, you should take the test reproduced
with this chapter on “What Is Your Marriage Expectancy?”
If your expectancy rating is low do not become pessimistic. That’s
the worst thing that could happen. Rather decide what you want in
a mate ... find where such a mate exists ... establish friendships
that will lead to introductions ... make yourself attractive to
possible mates by studying their wants and needs and appearing to
fill them. This is a formula that will get almost anyone a mate if
he or she really wants one.
WHAT IS YOUR EXPECTANCY OF MARRIAGE?
This test should show pretty clearly whether your chances of
marrying are good, or not so good. Be honest with yourself.
1. Do you sometimes compliment a person, even though it
is not deserved? Yes No
2. Do you prefer “different” or unconventional people? Yes No
3. Do you often become involved in heated arguments? Yes No
4. Are you a good dancer and a good mixer? Yes No
5. Do your parents generally like the people you date? Yes No
6. Do your good friends include both men and women of
about your own age? Yes No
7. Do you take an active part in two or more sports such
as tennis, swimming, golf or bowling? Yes No
8. Do you seem to get about your share of invitations to
mixed parties? Yes No
9. Do you and your dates frequently spend your evenings
with other couples? Yes No
10. Have you ever had a chance to become engaged? Yes No
11. Do you seem to make a pretty good first impression? Yes No
12. Do you weigh between 100 and 140 if a girl and 130 and
180 if a man? Yes No
13. Are you generally in good health? Yes No
14. Is your home cheerful and open to all of your friends? Yes No
15. Have you _met_ at least 20 members of the opposite sex
in the past three years who seemed like conceivable
marriage risks? Yes No
16. Do your friends visit you frequently? Yes No
17. Do you live in a town or area that seems to have as
many young people of the opposite sex as it has of
your own? Yes No
18. Do you usually get along with the parents of the
people you date? Yes No
19. Are you under 27 if a girl and under 30 if a man? Yes No
20. Do your friends seem to think of you as cheerful and
sociable? Yes No
21. Do you visit other towns three or four times a year? Yes No
22. When you meet someone you know, do you usually speak
first? Yes No
23. Do you usually remember names and faces of people you
meet? Yes No
24. Do you like to entertain a date at home? Yes No
25. Are you friendly or affectionate with persons you
like? Yes No
26. Would you marry a person three years younger or older
than you are? Yes No
27. Do you date fairly often? Yes No
28. Are you a good listener? Yes No
29. Do you find it easy to talk to strangers? Yes No
30. Is your voice pleasing and modulated? Yes No
31. Do you frequent places where members of the opposite
sex are? Yes No
32. Do you like to watch baseball, football or boxing? Yes No
33. Have you “gone steady” with two or more persons? Yes No
34. If a girl do you live west of the Mississippi or if a
man do you live in the East? Yes No
The correct answer to the first three questions is _no_,
and to all the remaining thirty-one questions _yes_. If you
answered twenty-five or more of the questions correctly then
you have a high “expectancy” rating. If you answered only
eight or less of them correctly then your chances of marrying
are definitely poor unless you take action to improve your
eligibility.
_Chapter III_