Families Evolving--The Saga of Education and Marriage for Women

With the approach of Valentine's Day thoughts naturally turn to romance, and the New York Times has a good story by Stephanie Coontz tracing the evolution of marriage among educated women in the western world. We no longer live in a world where men are routinely better educated than men. Indeed, that worm has turned:

TODAY women earn almost 60 percent of all bachelor’s degrees and more than half of master’s and Ph.D.’s. Many people believe that, while this may be good for women as income earners, it bodes ill for their marital prospects.

She goes on to note that it was once true that intelligent, well-educated women had more limited marital opportunities than their less-educated cousins. But that is all changing.

The sociologist Christine B. Whelan reports that by 2008, men’s interest in a woman’s education and intelligence had risen to No. 4, just after mutual attraction, dependable character and emotional stability.The result has been a historic reversal of what the economist Elaina Rose calls the “success” penalty for educated women. By 2008, the percentage of college-educated white women ages 55 to 59 who had never been married was down to 9 percent, just 3 points higher than their counterparts without college degrees. And among women 35 to 39, there was no longer any difference in the percentage who were married.
ONE of the dire predictions about educated women is true: today, more of them are “marrying down.” Almost 30 percent of wives today have more education than their husbands, while less than 20 percent of husbands have more education than their wives, almost the exact reverse of the percentages in 1970.
But there is not a shred of evidence that such marriages are any less satisfying than marriages in which men have equal or higher education than their wives. Indeed, they have many benefits for women.

In particular, Coontz notes that educated women have a different idea in mind of the kind of man to marry than might have been true in the past.

The most important predictor of marital happiness for a woman is not how much she looks up to her husband but how sensitive he is to her emotional cues and how willing he is to share the housework and child-care. And those traits are often easier to find in a low-key guy than a powerhouse.

This personality-trait theme is also the centerpiece of a new book just published by Susan Cain called "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking." I am in the middle of reading it right now and thoroughly recommend it.