<p>I think it is mainstream to be interested in relationships at all colleges. Immaturity and/or time demands interfere with the actual formation of committed relationships. Boorish, self-conscious, and awkward behavior can be turn-offs. My theory is that there is something important missing from modern-day family life. Students enter college with impaired abilities to form attachments and appreciate others characters and personalities. There are a lot of emotional “walking wounded”. A lot of shallow characters.</p>
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I think the men posting along those lines have dreams of fun parties and casual hookups. A different type of hunting than the proverbial MRS altogether …</p>
<p>I thought I’d jump in and add another perspective to this thread. I happen to have a girlfriend from my high school class, so I won’t be dating around in college. But coming from a guy, I would be going to college with three primary goals: 1. Academic success 2. Make friends/have fun and 3. Find a spouse.</p>
<p>I know that’s a rather straightforward way of stating it, but those would be my main goals. I could do incredibly well in college, go on to a great law school, and make tons of money. But what does all of that mean if you don’t have someone to share this success with? I would rather be moderately successful in my career and be happily married with a wife and family then be ridiculously successful and be miserable. As others have mentioned, college is the prime opportunity to find a future spouse. In most cases, you have hundreds and sometimes thousands of people of the opposite gender around your age that you interact with every day. Where else do you have that kind of opportunity? My point is that girls are more known and probably more likely to go to college for an MRS, but I think that there is a significant chunk of guys that would go to college to double major in an academic subject and with an “MR” degree… I think they’re just less likely to admit it. </p>
<p>You should go to college to achieve your goals. For me, I do not like the idea of spending my life alone. Fortunately for me, I have an amazing girlfriend, so I can focus on academics and my future career goals for now instead of “shopping around.” But if I were not dating anyone, college would be a great opportunity to start that search. Education should always be the main focus of college, but if you’re like <em>most</em> people and want to find the one, you don’t normally get a better shot than what you do in college.</p>
<p>“Lots of things have changed…”</p>
<p>1960: Many of the women at top women’s colleges are interested in meeting successful men.
2010: Many of the women at top women’s colleges are interested in meeting successful women.</p>
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<p>Until it is just as common for a young woman to be looking for a smart, motivated man who is willing to arrange HIS work life around HIS kids, “feminine power” will remain an elusive concept.</p>
<p>On my first day of college back in the 70s, a young woman told me she was there to “get [her] MRS.” I was shocked.</p>
<p>My roommmate and I later wrote a song parody based on the incident, to the tune of “Thank God I’m a Country Boy”:</p>
<p>“Well I came to Palo Alto just to get my MRS.
Expressly for that purpose I just bought this brand new dress.
I’ve looked in the east, now I’m looking in the west -
Thank God I’m a batchelorette.
Well I mean to find me a well paid husband
I want a new kitchen with a self-cleaning oven.
You supply the money, honey, I’ll supply the lovin’-
Thank God I’m a batchelorette.”</p>
<p>We were, of course, deploring the antiquated attitudes displayed in the song, not endorsing them. I think.</p>
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<p>I’m guessing you saw Mona Lisa Smile and thought it was a documentary? :)</p>
<p>FYI, going to a WOMEN’S college in search of a husband is not particularly logical. I would venture to guess that more women with a strong focus on looking for mates went to Northwestern and the University of Michigan–your alma maters–and other coed schools.</p>
<p>You also might want to look into the famous late 60s/early70s study that said that women who graduated from the Seven Sisters colleges that were NOT associated with men’s colleges were more likely to be achievers in business, academia, or a profession after graduation.</p>
<p>BTW, I don’t see why it is particularly ill-advised for a young person, male or female, to think about how to maximize their chances of having a balanced life in the future: one that includes a spouse and children as well as a career.</p>
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<p>You don’t live in the South. Getting a degree in marriage is still a big part of the big southern schools, including my alma mater UF.</p>
<p>Consolation, those girls who attended elite liberal arts colleges (this includes southern schools too) went to co-ed social events where they met their future husbands, the same folks who later enrolled in professional schools (JD, MBA, etc.) to become the breadwinners of the family.</p>
<p>tenisghs, what exactly is your authority for the information that women “especially” at the Seven Sisters went to college to find potential husbands? I would suggest to you that those of us who actually attended one of the schools–a Seven Sisters college (and none of them are located in the South)–probably know more about it than you do.</p>
<p>I am not suggesting that women who went to Seven Sisters colleges before, say, 1965, took a vow of celibacy and planned never to marry. And yes, they did in general socialize with young men from similarly elite men’s schools. But to suggest that they in particular, went to college looking for husbands is simply false. And that is what you said. </p>
<p>As I said, I’m quite sure that young women who chose to attend schools such as their state flagship public were at least as likely to be planning to marry. If a young woman’s goal was simply to get married, as you suggest, there would be no reason to subject herself to the demands of a more exacting education. Young women who attended Beaver, Simmons, Wheelock, Pine Manor, Lesley, or Colby Sawyer–just to name a few-- also socialized with men from elite men’s colleges and married them.</p>
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<p>That is a losing strategy in today’s dating market. Divorce, together with online dating sites, make it hard for a less-desirable dater to “arbitrage”, because a more-desirable partner has less downside in bailing out later on. A woman who exiles herself to an engineering monastery for four years may acquire a husband who switches wives when his career is more advanced and they live in sunnier pastures.</p>
<p>Consolation, you just proved my point. The Seven Sisters were an example, considering the daughters of wealthy and elite families attended these schools so that they could meet and marry suitable husbands (who latter attended the Ivy League and other elite universities) before racial integration and co-ed education was introduced in the 1960s. Let’s be honest, throughout the 19th century and early 20 century, certain colleges were indeed places for young women from wealthy and aristoratic backgrounds to meet other suitable potential husbands. Yes, these women studied a profession (mostly paraprofessional, social work, teaching, nursing, librarianship, etc.), but their husbands by default were the breadwinners of the family. Other schools, such as Sarah Lawrence and Vassar, etc. educated predominately women. My earlier example referred to a specific demographic who could afford college (remember a small percentage of Americans possessed a bachelor’s degree before 1970.) The same scenario existed in southern and other areas, including the more prominent HBCUs (Howard, Morehouse, Spelman, Fisk, etc.).</p>
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<p>As someone who only graduated from college two years ago, and has a lot of friends who are still undergrads, I don’t buy it. It doesn’t reflect what I saw or experienced at all.</p>
<p>There are some CLEVER people on this posting - some made me LOL! </p>
<p>I am intrigued by the last posting - are you saying that more people were looking for relationships or less? </p>
<p>So…if you go with the majority of posters that adding in looking for a spouse as a secondary objective of college is both smart planning and realistic, do those of you in the know see a difference between more rural areas (as one poster alluded to, where you are more apt to stay on campus) or more urban (where there are more off campus opportunities)?</p>
<p>Surprisingly interesting thread. My kids have experienced serial monogamy, dating only one person at a time. They haven’t met many girls who overtly admit they are looking for spouses, but there have been a few! </p>
<p>I overhead one of my Ss talking the other day with some friends, all 22-23 new grads. They were discussing the fact that a few of their high school classmates are engaged. Two had recently attended a wedding and said that it felt weird to realize that each date might be a prospective spouse at this point. Some of the older relatives had asked them at the wedding “when would it be their turn?” While they would never admit it, I sensed an undercurrent to the conversation that reminded me of when they were talking about who would get their drivers’ license first…if they weren’t thinking about finding a spouse in college, these guys are definitely looking now.</p>
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<p>a) There is no way that what I said proved your point, and b) you clearly have a very distorted view of the Seven Sisters colleges and their history. </p>
<p>Young women did NOT attend those schools simply to meet and marry suitable men: they attended those schools to get a superior education.</p>
<p>As I pointed out, there were plenty of other, usually less challenging women’s schools in the vicinity of the various Ivy League insitutions where students could and did meet and marry men from the Ivies and other elites. (MIT + Simmons, for example, was one of the most common pairings.) </p>
<p>You can keep repeating the idea that husband hunting was the major activity at the Seven Sisters (Radcliffe, Wellesley, Smith, Barnard, Mt Holyoke, Bryn Mawr, and Vassar) as much as you wish, but it will not make it true.</p>
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<p>I do not understand what you are driving at here. The Seven Sisters colleges, like other elite LACs, did not generally offer degrees in nursing, library science, or social work. Your reference to Sarah Lawrence and Vassar is puzzling, since both were women’s colleges that educated ONLY women, not “predominantly” women, and Vassar is one of the Seven Sisters.</p>
<p>Frankly, I don’t think that you know much about the Seven Sisters or their traditions. The Seven Sisters colleges were founded to give young women the same access to superior academics as men, not to provide superior access for husband-hunting.</p>
<p>After my Ds were admitted to Ivy League colleges, I suggested that they look for potential husbands while they are there. Having grown up in the 70s, I surprised myself with my own suggestion. But having been a single woman with a professional degree, I had experienced what I perceived to be a limited number of potential suitors who were not intimidated by my superior education (and I did not go to an Ivy). I have no reason to believe this has changed. Has it?</p>
<p>I think of it this way: college is a time to develop relationships (romantic and non-romantic), and the non-romantic relationships can lead to romantic ones through blind dates and all sorts of networking.</p>
<p>I’m a rising senior and I have to admit it’s on my mind. I’m a Christian and was considering one of those notorious MRS schools, until I decided to go to a non-Christian school for the more diverse student body. I’m not one of those girls’ whose main ambition is to get married; I see myself always working at least part-time. Still, once in a while I have this nagging thought in the back of my mind “I do want to get married.” I’m not too worried about it.</p>
<p>Consolation, the Seven Sister schools were the best private liberal arts colleges for women in their early existence, but the female college graduates still had to find suitable husbands with above-average potential. (By the way, besides teaching, social work was the second most common job for female college graduates.) Yes, many female students received an excellent liberal arts education, but they knew that their future husbands would be the breadwinners of the family. Women were still expected to raise the children and take care of the home. Attending these schools made it much easier in the old days to find an above-average husband with lots of earning potential (Seven Sister schools and Ivy League schools are in the same region!). The same analogy exists elsewhere in the US.</p>