Princeton Alumna Causes Uproar

The role of a woman has come a long way. Years ago it was expected for a woman to find a suitable husband at a young age and maintain a household while said husband was out providing for the family.

Now, women are encouraged to get an education, fight for equal rights, and be a driving force in society. You would think an Ivy League graduate would be up to date on the way society now works, but I guess an Ivy League education can’t buy you common sense.

Susan A. Patton, a 1977 Princeton University alumna, has caused an uproar with a letter that she wrote to the editor of the Daily Princetonian. Patton’s letter can be summarized in this way: Princeton women are smart, driven, and savvy, but are lacking the love of a good man who is also their intellectual equal.

Basically, Patton believes that a Princeton woman will never be able to find a husband of equal intelligence anywhere else, so she might as well focus her time on finding a husband while she’s in college.

The exact words go as follows:

"For most of you, the cornerstone of your future and happiness will be inextricably linked to the man you marry, and you will never again have this concentration of men who are worthy of you. "As freshman women, you have four classes of men to choose from. Every year, you lose the men in the senior class, and you become older than the class of incoming freshman men. So, by the time you are a senior, you basically have only the men in your own class to choose from, and frankly, they now have four classes of women to choose from. Maybe you should have been a little nicer to these guys when you were freshmen?"

What do you think about this? Personally, I think Patton has the (kind of) right idea, but went about saying it wrong. I do think that it’s important to find a partner who is of equal intelligence of you. Not for the reasons you would think, but because it’s essential in a relationship to have stimulating and challenging conversation.

I don’t, however, think you should be finding a husband at a certain time, or that you should even look for a husband. What do you think?

Ally | Elite.

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