Studying the case for a new Mrs. degree in marriage

By Zosia Bielski. Susan Patton’s incendiary letter, titled “Advice for the young women of Princeton: the daughters I never had,” is the spiritual equivalent of a nettlesome aunt at a holiday dinner. Whispering and tugging at your sleeve, she foretells great misery if you don’t couple up, soon. Published last Friday in The Daily Princetonian, Patton’s letter exhorted young women at the school to “lean in” less and husband hunt more, preferably ahead of graduation. Patton – class of ’77 – argued that women who settle for men below their intellectual level eventually come to resent those husbands, herself included. The divorcée believes there is nowhere better to meet your brainy match than at university. Read more...