How to Pick a Mate (1946) | Hacker News Reader

How to Pick a Mate (1946)

gutenberg.org

81 pointsrzk152 comments

Nine Dangerous Characters is unironically good advice. But people of course love to look for “sexist” snippets instead, so they can laugh at people of past, as if they would have been any better.

>> 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.

Oh wow has that changed. Kids and families = time away from the office. Marriage is also the leading cause of divorce, which tends to reduce productivity across a few years, especially if child custody is an issue. And, contrary to past working conditions where promotions were steady, a married person with a young family is now probably more likely to jump ship for a better job at higher pay rather that wait out a decade for in-house promotions.

Marriage is the leading cause of divorce?....without marriage, there is no divorce.

Interesting. What personal experiences or survey data are you drawing on for these conclusions? All of what you say sounds like solid, believable inferences but I doubt most people are exposed to enough data about the interaction of family life and work to draw meaningful generalizations. (If you turn out to be a professor of quantitative sociology, my face will be bright red :) ).

I am not a sociologist, but I do have a number of subordinates. I have people with domestic violence issues, people who cannot work late due to child custody handover times and even restraining orders between divorcing partners who both work at the same company. The single people seem to be more stable, the confirmed bachelors even more so.

You work in the military though, so not exactly the same culture as the average white collar worker.

When it comes to retail and factories, singles are much less reliable than parents. From my e xperience at least.

For white collar it's probably a different story. These are people the book mentions, bachelors or married couples choosing not to have kids for 'selfish' reasons. They have the money to thrive and experience as much personal pleasure as they want, be it in consumerism or plain free time, and don't want children to take away from that. But for retail workers, If one day doesn't break the bank (due to their low income already disqualifying them from taking on too much of a debt obligation), and a day working retail is another day of pure agony, they're more likely to take the hit by calling out sick or not showing up to instead do the things they want to do.

> Marriage is also the leading cause of divorce

Did you mean to say children instead of Marriage? You can't have divorce without marriage.

It's an old joke. It is also a statement illustrating a type of logical absurdity. I had a tax professor once rave at a student because her answer to "how to reduce your client's tax burden" was to have the client quit their job and have no income. "Having money is the leading cause of paying taxes!"

Ah makes way more sense.

Counterexample: politicians show their wife/husband to show stability.

Co-author Vance O. Packard's 1957 book "The Hidden Persuaders" was a best-seller.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vance_Packard

Free PDF: https://archive.org/download/the-hidden-persuaders-vance-pac...

Thank you for the link. His output seems to be remarkably perenial and valid today, the kind that's usually done by a profound observer that has all the information but that can also see things through the eyes of an outsider.

I thought this was interesting:

    People Who Should Not Marry at All

    Qualifications for Marriage   Percentage Voting for Them
    Freedom from venereal disease  100%
    Freedom from feeble-mindedness
    (If sterilized, 24% would permit marriage)  99%
    Freedom from insanity  97%
    Freedom from criminality  94%
    Freedom from dipsomania  91%
    Freedom from drug addiction  85%
    Freedom from neuroticism  76%
    Proof by groom that he can support bride
    (This includes evidence of occupational proficiency
    and at least $150 in savings)  69%
    Record of no more than one divorce, if any  50%

Reminds me of: https://igotstandardsbro.com/

Similarly: https://realitycalc.com/

According to that first one I only had a 4% chance of meeting my boyfriend, so that’s interesting. 4% actually seems pretty doable regardless, not sure I really deserve the ‘cat lady’ rating - go on a hundred dates, and you should at least run across a few solid possibilities.

$150 USD/1946 is about $2,340 USD/2023. Interesting.

"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."

Ladies, stalking a man does work, sometimes.

The whole "he wouldn't stop calling me/stopping by my work etc till we went on a date and now we've been married 40+ years" was apparently a LOT more common back in the mid 20th century.

Hard to imagine that happening today.

No, not really. There's a difference between persistence and stalking. Sometimes a very fine line, depending on the personalities involved. The reality is that some people enjoy being pursued, but often their signals can be subtle or misunderstood.

If it's been suggested or hinted at that you should stop (or outright told, "quit bugging me"), then continuing is stalking. You'd think everyone would understand that but evidently that's not the case.

There obvious historical issues with this book that make it hard to apply to today, but I was still surprised at how well written this was for it’s time.

This also shows the importance of birth control in women’s lives. In 1946, sex was a roll of the dice to being pregnant. The odds are now massively improved to avoid pregnancy by using modern birth control methods.

> but I was still surprised at how well written this was for it’s time.

I've read several books written by soldiers who fought in WW1 and the Boer War.

It's fascinating to read a book written 100+ years ago that is easy to read, informative and witty all at the same time.

Sure, there are some things that are hard to understand b/c they don't exist anymore (E.g. "the crates were packed with excelsior") but overall they've been very interesting.

Marriage would be so much more straightforward if many of the lessons that we had to learn anyway were presented up front. It’s too bad that so many pre-marriage “courses” are religious in nature.

Totally this. I wish schools taught relationship dynamics, family issues, basic finance, etc. rather than useless maths and archaic grammar. I never learned that stuff from my parents and spent decades learning it the hard way.

> how well written this was for it’s time

This is the first time I've encountered the sentiment that things have become better written in the last 3-6 generations. Are you really surprised that a book from 1946 would be well written? I´d love to glean an idea of your views on this to widen my own views.

I only meant that specifically in regards to this topic, “finding a mate”. The era was fairly repressive on the topic and so many euphemisms and religious over tones to everything. This was refreshingly straight forward.

You figure people were just bad writers back then? If anything, I'd say they were better writers, though probably only marginally. Read a couple scientific papers from 1945 and you'll more than likely actually enjoy yourself, for example. There's a kind of frankness to a lot of mid-century writing that a lot of cutesy modern writing lacks.

Skimmed through a few sections, can't help but compare it to "The Game" with marriage as the goal instead of pickup/sex. But treats it like a game all the same, and treats women like pawns in that game.

Possible difference is "The Game" actually ends as a warning to those who just see it as a games and doesn't skimp on the emotional turmoil men go through that refuse to stop tying their self-worth with how much they get laid.

Dunno if this book does the same where at the end it does a 180 and shows you how damaging it can be to tie one's self-worth to getting married.

Unfortunately this was probably pretty close to reality for most women in the timeframe that this author was writing this in.

Yes, given the author says this:

> 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!

Of course, since '46 capitalism has demanded women enter the workforce to compete with men and drive down wages.

The real sexism against women is the failure to treat motherhood as less valuable/noble than a 9/5 office career. Motherhood, collectively, is the most important job in the world.

Isn't the real sexism against women still ... sexism?

If a woman wants to be a mother or wants a successful career, that's the most valuable/noble job in the world to that woman.

Motherhood (and fatherhood) seems way more noble to me than optimizing ad-spend or whatever the hell half of us here do (either directly or indirectly).

But no one is making a modern Western woman do anything.

Except, in real terms, everyone is now vastly better off than in 1946?

Everyone is likely better off, but not everyone is vastly better off. Some people are likely a bit better off economically but way worse off socially (since the dating market is much more "efficient" and competitive than it was in 1946, which will be a win for some, and a major loss for others).

And some people's/professions economic potential peaked in the early 1970s (truckers, for example, and some other blue collar jobs)

Comments like these used to infuriate me. How can you look at the massive wave of prosperity that has been hitting humanity since the Industrial Revolution and complain?

But now I realize that the infinite human capacity to find fault even with paradise is key to the infinite human capacity for growth and new solutions.

Aren't you kind of overstating this? Perhaps for countries like India, which have seen massive increases in real wages and a corresponding rise out of poverty. In the US, the generation after the Greatest Gen (targeted here) was the Boomers, who made a lot more money and had a lot more opportunities. Since then, we've seen a massive rise in inequality, a wipeout of civic life, political disenfrancisement and lack of trust, and wage stagnation. If you just look at one number going up, great. But a rising total, and a rising average, disguises a falling median. Of course people aren't happy with that.

How has there been a wipeout of civic life? Since the time of the boomers, we've seen the end of colonialism in Africa and elsewhere, the civil rights movement in the states, equality for women, gay rights, overall a massive relaxation of rigid social norms. Just because old people remember halcyon times does not mean it was actually so.

We've seen massive decreases in disease and infant mortality. Poor people in third world countries live longer, are healthier, and even grow taller.

Communication and IT used to be horrendous, and horrendously expensive. Now even homeless people in Africa (where I'm from) have extremely connected supercomputers in their pockets.

Mean and median wealth and income has skyrocketed in real and nominal terms. There's no perspective on median income and wealth that is both bleak and based on facts. This is true for the human population and especially for the US.

And don't give me "inequality has gone up". It was very high, then it dipped, now it's going back up. What difference does it make - your life is much better, no matter who you are and where you live. Who cares if the richest person has ten yachts or twenty.

Pessimism is a procrastination tactic.

Sources:

ourworldindata.org

imf.org/en/Data

who.int/data

data.worldbank.org

tradingeconomics.com

This is a weird way to frame women working.

Nothing weird about it. Women are 51% of the population. Doubling the number of job applicants didn't do anybody any favors during salary negotiation.

Framing women's ability to work as being bad for men is indeed a pretty weird framing in my opinion.

> Doubling the number of job applicants didn't do anybody any favors during salary negotiation.

It seems like it might have done a few favors to the women who could even enter into those negotiations, whereas before those doors were entirely closed to them.

> Framing women's ability to work as being bad for men

I framed it as bad for everyone because it essentially doubled the number of workers looking for jobs. Simple economics.

> It seems like it might have done a few favors to the women

They're certainly a lot more independent now but my point is it did not come without cost. Nowadays both husband and wife have to work to maintain a good standard of living.

But it's not bad for everyone, because as I just pointed out, it provided a lot of women the ability to work and achieve financial stability on their own.

For unmarried women, there is no cost, only benefits.

The externality of this is that fewer women are having kids. Even if it's overall a good situation for the individuals, in 30 or 60 years we may see the overall quality of life dwindle as the population stagnates or begins to decline. Economic growth is a byproduct of population growth. This doesn't bode well for the US if it means its population could soon become similar to that of Japan's, where the average age is elderly with fewer and fewer young adults available to participate in innovation and economic growth.

I'm not saying that any of this is bad in general, just that the U.S., and probably the world in aggregate, has paved its own path to a stagnant economy and an eventual declining population. And this isn't the fault of the individuals choosing this path, just that wealthy capitalists have put their own needs over incentivizing people to keep the world populated and participate in the end game of motherhood/fatherhood.

> in 30 or 60 years we may see the overall quality of life dwindle as the population stagnates or begins to decline

Already happening. Even in developing countries. Less productive young people in the work force, more unproductive old people depending on social security and whatnot. Everything's gonna be fine until the money runs out. Gigantic economic disaster in the making.

There is no nation without natalism.

> This doesn't bode well for the US if it means its population could soon become similar to that of Japan's

It will. As will every other country if nothing is done to heavily incentivize motherhood and family formation.

When I say this people usually downvote me to oblivion for some reason. Maybe they think I'm making this up. Well, I'm not. They should read what actual japanese government officials have been saying about this. They use the word "extinction".

Let me explain then.

Automation, increased productivity continue to rise at least as fast. Not clear we won't be fine simply because of that.

And No we do not have to chase the Malthusian Catastrophe to 'win'. We can do it other ways. Quelling consumerism. Reigning in capitalism. Sensibly designing cities.

The Japanese talk only of extinction of the pure Japan, which is on the face of it a racist policy. Not a real strong point in the argument. Japan will persist, with a normal mix of people from around the world creating a new culture that they want. Not something frozen in time that the octogenarians of Japan worship and cling onto.

> The Japanese talk only of extinction of the pure Japan

> Japan will persist

> with a normal mix of people from around the world

> creating a new culture

So what you're saying is the actual japanese people will go extinct and all the immigrants who actually have children will replace them and create a new japanese culture.

And you see nothing wrong with that at all.

That's typical hyperbole, and not moving the discussion forward.

Nobody, not even the Japanese government expects that. They are anticipating a difficulty maintaining their culture against mixing with the world. Which has actually been going on for 70 years now, and continues at a breakneck pace.

Japanese people will come to include all sorts of people, who will happily live together and move forward. Without our permission or control, as folks all over the world do.

> Nobody, not even the Japanese government expects that.

Are you sure?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-64373950

> They are anticipating a difficulty maintaining their culture against mixing with the world.

Of course. If you don't have children, then you need immigration from countries that do. That will obviously change your culture.

A nation is made up of people of a shared origin, history, culture, ethnicity, language. If you replace the people with immigrants and they create a new culture, the nation is no more.

> Japanese people will come to include all sorts of people, who will happily live together and move forward.

That's like saying white people will come to include all sorts of people.

Culture is changing constantly; the idea that there's a fixed point there is absurd, because again, there is nothing inherent to a nation other than lines drawn on an arbitrary map.

White people already do include all sorts of people -- whiteness is, obviously, not a single unified ethnicity, national, cultural, linguistic, or historical background but an aesthetic conception of someone's skin color. Because ethnostatism is stupid and intellectually inconsistent.

> > The Japanese talk only of extinction of the pure Japan

> > Japan will persist

The point is that they aren't doing well on the "persist" front. https://apnews.com/article/japan-birth-rate-record-low-popul...

Why would there be anything wrong with it? This is the way cultures and people have changed since time immemorial.

> This is the way cultures and people have changed since time immemorial.

Yeah, because some empire came and killed your people off and conquered your lands and enslaved your survivors and erased your culture so they could replace it their own.

Not because people wiped themselves off the map because they wouldn't have children.

Cultures are and always have been constantly shifting and changing; conquest is one method of that happening, as you point out, but is far from the only one. Immigration, emigration, catastrophe, technological progress, climate change... all result in the movement of people and the shifting of national and cultural boundaries.

No culture is "erased" as a result of this. Even if Japan fails to have children, Japanese culture and the Japanese nation will continue. It will look different, certainly. But there's nothing magical or better about the way things used to be simply because they used to be that way. Change is inevitable, and more than that, it is good.

> Even if Japan fails to have children, Japanese culture and the Japanese nation will continue.

No. Nations are a collection of people with shared ethnicity, land, culture, language, history. If the japanese people disappear, the nation will also disappear. It's not going to magically continue just because the country of Japan is still there. Can't have a nation without its people.

No. Nations are lines drawn on a map. The people inside need have nothing in common other than geographic proximity.

Japan will exist as long as people live there and call it Japan. It has nothing to do with ethnicity, land, culture, or history.

Nonsense.

> nation

> A people who share common customs, origins, history, and frequently language

There are nations without states. There are also nation states. The latter is more precise than country which does not imply any dominant ethnic group.

If you don’t have the intellectual capacity to continue that’s okay. I understand ethnostatists get easily confused by ambiguity and historical fact.

I'm not confused at all. I have no reason to doubt my understanding of things at this time. First you redefined words and contradicted dictionary and encyclopedic definitions of simple concepts and terms. Now you're calling me a stupid, confused, mentally incapable "ethnostatist". This borders on gaslighting.

More alarmist hyperbole. I know of several Japanese families in my hometown, come here to study, and they are doing fine.

So what? My hometown was literally built by the japanese. My parents worked with japanese their entire lives. Sometimes I go to a restaurant and I hear people speaking japanese nearby. They're all doing fine too.

Doesn't change the fact birth rates in Japan are below replacement. Am I missing something here?

Extinction means more than 'below replacement'. Things change; culture changes. It's the lowering population figures that will require change that the octogenarians fear, not actual non-existence of a Japanese people. All the rest of this thread has been disingenuous hyperbole based on that.

I saw a Javan Rhinos the other day. He seemed to be doing pretty good.

If economic growth is a byproduct of population growth, then we need to find new patterns for economic growth. There was never a future in which human populations would (or could) increase forever.

Blaming wealthy capitalists for ruining motherhood/fatherhood seems rather conspiratorial. Why do you believe men and women are not rational actors working in their own self-interest? Again, women want jobs not because capitalists forced them to participate in the workforce, but because being forced to be a dependent of the men in your life truly sucks.

And this discussion in the context of women having jobs is my problem with the framing. Forcing women to be birthing factories permanently hitched to a man for their own safety and security is a worse outcome than the cessation of economic or population growth.

> Forcing women to be birthing factories permanently hitched to a man for their own safety and security is a worse outcome than the cessation of economic or population growth.

Worse for whom? For women personally, probably. For nations? For the species? I don't know.

I thought nations and the species were composed of women, so what is worse for women is probably worse for them too. Or are women outside of nations and the species?

Come on. Life depends on reproduction to sustain itself. That's completely at odds with the current status quo where both men and women postpone or even forgo reproduction for economic reasons. How are you supposed to have a human race if it doesn't reproduce?

What's good for the individual does not necessarily align with what's good for the collective.

There are 8 billion people on the planet and the population is still growing. Concern trolling about the future of humanity itself is pretty dumb given that, don't you think?

Though maybe not quite as silly as claiming that the individual desires of women don't matter but the individual desires of men do, given that there are more women than men. Certainly women's voices compromise more of the collective than men's voices, given there are more women, hmm?

> Concern trolling about the future of humanity itself is pretty dumb given that, don't you think?

No, I don't think so. It's still growing for now because there are still countries with birth rates above replacement. It is slowing down though. It's expected to peak and start its decline at the end of this century.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/07/1122272

I'm framing this in the sense that capitalism forced nearly all women into the workforce. Without any women in the workforce, a woman could be a full-time mother to their child. Now, they must work to achieve the same level of pay and standard of living as when men were paid enough to sustain a family at home off their single paycheck.

It's not a bad thing that women are able to become independent today with no spouse or children. In fact I agree that it's better now that women are no longer literally forced to find a man to live separate from their parents. It's just bad that capitalism made it impossible to be a mother without two incomes (as in, forcing both parental figures to have enough of an income to provide for the child). To add, this is partially what the school system is for - not just to educate the workforce of the future, but to babysit them during the day so that their parents can work their 9-5.

Women wanted to enter the workforce. No one (capitalism, capitalists, men) forced them to do so. That is why your framing is bad.

This is a quote from chapter one of the linked book. Not my words.

> Of course, since '46 capitalism has demanded women enter the workforce to compete with men and drive down wages.

That is your words and is a weird way to frame women working.

In the context of

> But treats it like a game all the same, and treats women like pawns in that game.

I point out that the author sees a positive of mating as how the woman is a "pawn" to do things like cook and sew for you.

My words are only to show that "despite" this being an advantage in '46, women have since entered the workforce, but the point I make is how this only really happened because the forces of capitalism demanded/allowed them to, in order to drive down everyones' wages with the increased competition.

This doesn't downplay the reasons women participated in the move towards both parties in a family working to make a livelihood. Just that capitalism saw an opportunity to thrive with the addition of women in the workforce; that benefit being either (A) they can increase total velocity within an organization without necessarily spending double the money by hiring 2x the amount of workers, or (B) can achieve the same output for less money. The benefits for the wealthy capitalists are compounded when you factor in how they were/are paying women less than men in general.

> the point I make is how this only really happened because the forces of capitalism demanded/allowed them to, in order to drive down everyones' wages with the increased competition.

Right, this is the part with the weird framing.

Women work in order to achieve happiness, financial independence, have fun, give their life meaning -- all the reasons men do. Framing this as "capitalism forced women to work" seems entirely to ignore that women want to work just as much (or as little) as men do and for the same reasons.

Saying that the result is everyone's wages being driven down entirely ignores the fact that prior to this many women had zero ability to make any wages. So, their willing participation in the workforce is just a net benefit to them and to society as a whole.

True, but in the end it's not real, even for men. You can increase Google's stock price by $x by serving better ads or implementing the next killer YouTube feature, but those things will eventually cease to exist, and your name will most likely not be tied to that any longer than you're alive. Capitalism glamourized working for these corporations, working to achieve this level of financial independence, in order to increase their own profits. Relevant clip from 1923: https://youtu.be/JZx5yiF-nPA

My point is that motherhood/fatherhood shouldn't be downplayed. It's the real end game of life, and is what this book is speaking about - even after you die, your child(ren) will possibly reproduce as well, leaving you with dozens, hundreds of eventual offspring.

By allowing any women to enter the workforce, all wages got pushed down, so now instead of a married couple being able to have the mother permanently at home, rearing up their child in the way they see fit and forming a human connection for them, both parents are forced to work to make ends meet. By capitalism forcing/allowing women to work, they removed the option for a parent be a full-time caregiver for their child. Everyone must work now - if you don't, and the single earner isn't making bank, be prepared to eat off food stamps and sacrifice your convenience, health, and safety.

> You can increase Google's stock price by $x by serving better ads or implementing the next killer YouTube feature, but those things will eventually cease to exist, and your name will most likely not be tied to that any longer than you're alive.

Humans overall will eventually cease to exist. All of us will be forgotten within a few generations, even if we have children. Motherhood/fatherhood is not the "real end game of life." You might believe so, but many others do not. Why are their points of view less valid than your own?

You continue to push the framing of this being bad for married couples. But again, it's simply better for unmarried women. Why should they be forced to suffer because we want artificially higher wages or because you have this idea that we need more babies?

> Humans overall will eventually cease to exist. All of us will be forgotten within a few generations, even if we have children. Motherhood/fatherhood is not the "real end game of life." You might believe so, but many others do not. Why are their points of view less valid than your own?

It's the end game of life in the sense that your goal in life is to achieve immortality. Pretty much all of our ancestors did this by mating, and within the past 500 years you're likely to be able to find the names of all who came before you on ancestry, which is effectively immortality in name. Irvin Yalom once said, "They say you die twice. Once when you stop breathing and the second, a bit later on, when somebody mentions your name for the last time" (this quote was not from Bansky).

For those that don't, or didn't reproduce, immortality is so extremely hard to achieve. That's why I mention "increasing Google's stock price" - it doesn't matter, and nobody will remember your name for doing so. You'll leave a good life, but that's it. The only way to achieve immortality in this case is to leave a legacy. For example, Steve Jobs is slated to leave a legacy for as long as Apple is alive plus perhaps a thousand years or more. Of course, once humanity is wiped out, it won't matter all too much what anyone did or ever will do, save for all of the species of plants, animals, and insects we've extincted.

It's no secret that money, i.e. capitalism, is one of the biggest factors why millenials and soon enough Gen Z will avoid starting a family. A lot will do it for financial independence but the amount of married couples that also forego children is likely large. For all of them, they won't leave a legacy if they don't create the next Apple. If that's not important to them, I respect that and wouldn't wish to force them into anything, but many married (or prospective) couples are having their dreams crushed by how infeasible it is becoming to financially support children without both parents working a job.

> 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.

you have been warned /s

There’s nothing controversial about it. Usually people get to know other people at university or at work. To meet someone outside of your everyday environment requires extra effort. I know it from my own experience as well (trying to find a girlfriend while studying CS).

Well, I did meet my wife in college. If she had gone to a girls’ college (which I assume means girls-only, do they even still have those?) then I wouldn’t have met her. Frankly, that probably would not have reduced her chances of marriage, but I think it would have reduced mine ;-)

Wellesley College is a well known women's only college. Hillary Clinton went there, and it's still women only today (although they have partnerships with nearby schools like Harvard and MIT and Boston College for the women to take classes there if they want (and experience classes with mixed genders)).

They also have planned social activities with those nearby mixed gender colleges.

(My friend went there and told me all of this, and I assume it's still the case even though it's been 25 years :) ).

They have planned mixers to remediate a known lack. Obviously the occasional gathering isn't going to replicate the experience of a coed college where you're interacting closely with people every day.

It's just as true for the opposite sex. Just that there aren't really any men-only colleges.

Back in the day, there certainly were plenty of men-only colleges. Or close enough.

The US Navy Academy first admitted a woman in 1976.

> 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[31] nursing for a career cut their marriage prospects by at least 50 percent.

Sounds like engineering

You don't think this is true?

Judging by how you feel it necessary to even ask such a ridiculous question, I strongly doubt you would accept any answer but that which supports your anachronistic views.

A man goes to the office every working day. He works long hours as he is trying to prove himself and really grow his career. Even after work, he's more likely to just quietly hit the gym or read in the evenings.

He's obviously hurt his chances at marriage. He's not investing in any women. He's not socializing or dating, he's not learning to be a good partner.

Now go back and pretend I said "woman" instead of "man".

I'm totally open to being wrong. But take the girls' college thing for instance. Many, many people I know met their spouses through college. There simply aren't as many chances to socialize and meet people after you graduate. I think it stands to reason that if you are a straight woman, you are less likely to find a spouse if you go to a college with only women.

women's colleges routinely mixed socially, had dances etc. with men's colleges. To the point that alot of girls went to college to meet eligible men of upper echelons.

I don't think GP's point was that women's colleges have mixers

Data about marriage among people who choose various lifepaths is not a viewpoint.

There is an increasingly prevalent view among the "freshman profundity" set that if you've arrived at any view that is counter to theirs, then it's because you oppose their political or moral value system. However, a good understanding of the world rarely yield beliefs that cohere with the kind of convenient, value-oriented rhetorical slogans that people get self-righteous over online.

The most optimal situation to pick a mate is during college, undergrad or grad school. This other institution has been eroding because of the lack of men going to college and excessive tuition costs, i.e., debt, for all reducing the net economic incentive that it once was.

The questions they must eventually answer in the affirmative are:

1. Do you trust them implicitly with your life and everything else?

2. Are you better with them than apart?

The irreducible problem is: very few people today can or would meet this standard. There aren't that many good, decent, mature, reliable people who are also available and mutually attracted. There are millions of cowardly narcissists working on their sun tans, personal brands, and increasing numbers of people they've slept with without knowing anything about them because they're too afraid to have emotional courage.

I seriously thought this was about finding a friend- or buddy-for-life...

As Argentinian I should tag this as clickbait

And I hoped this is about chess end games.

Lol, pick :'). I have to stop at the title because I don't even get to the part where I get to pick :').

Search does come first. Someone would be happy to have you, I'm almost sure. And if not, well, you know what to work on.

I thought I was unworthy for a long time, and basically invested in myself until my 40s. Then when I started looking in earnest, I got married scary fast.

Where do you look? Inside my friend circle there's nobody (all married or in a relationship), Tinder is a bust (I don't even remember when my last match was). I used to attend some Linux clubs but even if they are available they are so defensive about a man coming over to chat that the best thing I can muster is saying how good the cola is... Nobody at workplace either...

(Assuming you're a straight male)

I'm happy that there are more women in computing than before, but I would bet money against even finding one, let alone a single one who is a match, at a Linux club.

It's a numbers game, and you have to go where the numbers are. But you also shouldn't go to spots with lots of single women - like yoga or something - solely to pick one up.

Dating with an aim to marry is not easy for any demographic, especially if you're starting from scratch, but you only have to hit the jackpot once

I used Tinder in Colombia. (I'm from the US, but I live here now -- to which fact my wife surely deserves some credit.)

I was curious for a summary of what the book suggested. Here is Kagi’s summarizer:

- Emotional maturity and stability are key traits for a happy marriage. People who are well-adjusted, have good self-confidence, and can handle problems well tend to have more successful marriages.

- Communication and companionship are vital for a happy marriage. Couples need to develop a strong bond through sharing interests, aspirations, and conversations.

- Compatibility and similar traits between partners promote marital happiness. Couples who have similar personalities, backgrounds, and interests tend to get along better.

- Sexual satisfaction and intimacy are important for a fulfilling marriage. Couples need to develop a good sexual relationship and intimacy to avoid infidelity and build closeness.

- Mutual understanding, trust, and respect are crucial for a lasting marriage. Partners need to be considerate of each other's needs, supportive, and willing to compromise.

- Shared goals and values help strengthen a marriage. Couples who have common life goals and moral values tend to be more content in their relationships.

- Financial stability and compatibility aid marital happiness. Couples who manage their finances well and agree on spending habits tend to have fewer conflicts.

- Physical and mental health issues can strain a marriage. Conditions like addiction, mental illness, and disabilities require effort and understanding from both partners.

- Similar family backgrounds promote marital success. Children of happily married parents tend to have more successful marriages themselves.

- Premarital counseling can help resolve issues before marriage. Seeking advice from professionals and discussing expectations can prepare couples for the challenges of married life.

Non-native speaker here. Is there a ranking to "key", "vital", "crucial", and "important", or should I read these as being equivalently important? I'm taking the latter as lesser than the former three, though that also depends on what Kagi is I suppose.

- "Vital" and "crucial" both indicate a required element.

- "Key" and "important" both indicate notable elements.

- "Key" can also be used to indicate a required element, i.e. "keystone", however it is not always used in this way.

- "Key" can also be used to indicate "there is only one" though it is not always used in this way.

When "key" is meant as "singular & required & notable" it probably carries the most weight of all these words. However, since it is not always used in that way, I personally tend to give it less weight.

In casual use I would order them like this (strongest to weakest): crucial, vital, key, important.

In formal use I would order them like this (strongest to weakest): key, vital, crucial, important.

My favorite thesaurus, ChatGPT, agrees with my casual use ranking. https://chat.openai.com/share/10bb8195-c7cd-4c0c-935f-f5b4c3...

As a pedantic native speaker, I'd like to describe the different interpretations I have for these words. Hopefully this explanation illustrates the differences in a more useful way to you than simple ordering. I am not saying that this is exactly what the summary meant for these words, I'm just adding more context:

- Important: Describes that something has high priority, in a general sense. Very broad. Can replace any of the other terms, but is less precise.

- Key: Important in a utilitarian sense. Just like a literal key, using "key" here implies that something is an essential part of a solution to a problem/issue.

- Vital: Important in an ongoing sense. Think of "vitality"," the capacity to live, grow, or develop. We should use "vital" when we mean something is important to do as a habit, to maintain the strength of something.

- Crucial: Another term that is general. Basically "important" but with higher priority. It implies that there is some urgency, gravity, or necessity to whatever is crucial or the matter to which whatever is crucial.

Yes, "important" is slightly lesser than "key," "vital," and "crucial," but not by a large enough margin that I would confidently infer intent beyond cycling through synonyms to keep the prose interesting.

Mostly, they're used interchangeably by native speakers.

I recommend searching the original text to see how they're used in context.

key - not used in the text

important - seems to be used when comparing things: more important or less important

vital and crucial - used in the text, both of them seeming to indicate the highest priority

They’re all roughly interchangeable. Reusing adjectives in English writing is generally avoided. This may be why we have so many redundant ones!

They are not strictly defined/quantified, especially when a summarizer is producing them

I would suggest plugging words that you are curious about into a thesaurus, then looking up the definitions of each of the entries that you find in a dictionary to further your understanding

1. Vital, Crucial 2. Key, Important

Interesting question! I think I’d agree with your ranking. Maybe important < key < [crucial or vital]

But this strikes me more as a question of author’s emphasis rather than a ranking of the actual factors in reality?

Thanks, that's very helpful.

Any indication per whether this is data based or just "common sense driven"?

They sometimes cite data.

> One German study showed that the fewest divorces were in marriages between Jews and that the largest number of divorces occurred when a Catholic married a non-Catholic. In Maryland, twelve thousand young people were asked the religious affiliations of their parents and also asked if their parents were living together, divorced or separated. Here were the percentage of broken marriages found in different groupings:

  When both parents Jewish 4.6%
  When both parents Catholic 6.4%
  When both parents Protestant 6.8%
  When religions mixed 15.2%

Also in "People Who Should Not Marry at All"

Also

> While, as you notice, these fiancées felt extremely reluctant to marry a man who had lost his sexual potency, only a small proportion (16%) would refuse to marry an ex-soldier who had become sterile.

But the main text is written with their own opinions and observations.

> 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.

I'm sure that's the full story on why they won't marry, 1940's era author ;)

Not sure what this is getting at

Men who choose men over women, like Alan Turing, Freddie Mercury, George Michael

Gay marriage wasn't legal back then

Only about 2-3% of men report being gay in western countries today. “Over ten percent” is a much larger number.

Because there is still a stigma to it and there are still many men who hide that part of their identity (and women too). And also because being gay obviously isn't the only reason men stay single.

You can also be Bi, Pansexual, Asexual, Queer, etc

> "In 2021, Ipsos interviewed people in 27 countries spanning all continents on their sexual orientation and gender identity. For some countries the samples were weighed for representativity, but in others with less internet access, they skewed more urban. In this survey, 80% of people worldwide identified as heterosexual, 3% as homosexual, 4% as bisexual, and 1% each as pansexual, asexual, and other. Results indicated that significant differences in sexual identity have emerged between generations across the globe, with the youngest group, or Generation Z, being more likely to identify as bisexual (9%) than Millennials (4%), Generation X (3%) and Boomers (2%). Generation Z and Millennials were also more likely to identify as homosexual, with 4% and 3% doing so respectively, compared to 2% of Generation X and 1% of Boomers."

Bi, Pansexual, Asexual, Queer

Sure, but then it may be less likely for those who do to "prefer to remain a bachelor." Heck, it was not uncommon even for gay men to get married back then.

My point is: we shouldn't assume that the only reason for men to "prefer to remain a bachelor" is their sexuality and in so doing assume all of those 10% of men are LGBTQ+.

It's worse than that. Back then being gay wasn't even legal, much less gay marriage.

Gay men often "took beards."

https://thewisdomdaily.com/are-you-a-beard/

I think that might be what the 1940s author is saying. (See: "confirmed bachelor")

Yeah, they definitely allude to it: "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."

Amazingly well written. I found myself vigorously agreeing with several strong statements therein...I guess its because I'm an immigrant from a conservative culture and this is kinda how we think about these things. Very cut and dry, doesn't waste time hemming & hawing. Gets to the point. Just to be safe, I downloaded this book. I'm pretty sure we won't see this freely hosted online a decade from now, given the current cultural mores.

> pretty sure we won't see this freely hosted online a decade from now

Eh, regardless of cultural mores, I think you'll still be able to find it on sites like Gutenberg whose explicit goal is to preserve public domain works.

I agree that it is very cut and dry, and I miss that tone in more modern nonfiction literature - this tone is present in many genres from the WWII era; even technical manuals for old radios read very conversationally yet tersely.

This made me laugh a lot. Thank you for sharing.

Interestingly that today we laugh at the fact that there is a book helping people how to make one of the most important decisions in their life. It is normal to have books about how to cook food, how to travel, how to exercise. But God forbid there should be a book on how to select a good marriage partner.

No no, you'll just see someone and realize through sight alone they are your _true love_. Fate will have happened.

Or you'll hookup with someone and then through a rom com series of mishaps end up falling in love accidentally!

Remember, you can't choose to love someone. You are a powerless pawn. You need fate or the stars or an accident to fall in love.

I'm being grumpy but we've developed a weird cultural learned helplessness when it comes to relationships. We're so afraid to be seen as judging other people most folks can't even seem to directly take action.

Wait, isn't there still a huge industry of self-help books focused on relationships and romance?

Sure, for women. But to tell a man to be selective when searching for a female partner, and to give him criteria and heuristics to help him select are labeled as sexist. After all, every woman has worth, a woman can never be told that she has to do any self reflection to find a quality man, we can't be allowed to admit that some women are undesirable just like some men are.

Are you serious? Do you seriously believe what you wrote? Why do you think that? What’s the source of your discontent?

What in particular do you have an issue with? I'd be happy to discuss our particular disagreements on this topic.

I happen to be very content actually. My wife agrees with me wholeheartedly on everything I said here, and we are both very happy with one another.

Yikes, it sounds like you have something you need to work on.

Like what?

Not creating weird misogynistic strawmen would be a cool start

Oh I see, you don't have a point. Got it.

No I said it. Not really my problem if you can’t read that, since it was honestly pretty obvious. And the other reply to your comment laid out basically the same criticism.

I'm not seeing a criticism here, not even a "you're wrong", just snide allusions that I should know something you know but I don't and so there's something wrong with me.

And there very well may be, which is why I'm giving you an opportunity to help me correct my misunderstanding and asking for exactly what I said that you think is incorrect.

Because picking a good marriage partner is ableist. That's why it's controversial.

For example, people prefer good looking people as marriage partners. That makes people who are not good looking sad. And you can imagine for other traits like income, age, height, social status.

What a time to be able to read.

They were clearly joking. I think.

I'm going to assume that you believe that there is only one standard for "good looking people" and that everyone conforms to it?

What "good looking" means might vary somewhat from person to person, but it's not completely subjective. Some people look better than others, which makes them more desirable partners in general.

I beg to differ, but this isn't a hill I care about dying on, so I'll leave it at that.

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