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Taylor Hall, the main entrance to
Vassar College at Poughkeepsie. N. Y.
By Helen Welshimer
A SERIOUS effort to bring about
happier marriages and to com
bat the great American divorce
evil at its source has been in
augurated at Vassar College. Young
husbands and wives, above all, must
be “good companions,” the girls are
being taught.
The modern sciences of sociology,
psychology, and biology are being
brought to focus on the problem of how
to live together and like it 365 days
of the year Vassar’s students are told
that they probably won’t reach a
wooden anniversary, let alone a silver
or golden one, unless they choose hus
bands who share their interests and
follow similar moral standards.
The 20th century study of husband
choosing, which is taking the young
ladies of Poughkeepsie away from the
movies and study halls on certain
nights', doesn’t profess to give the 1200
college girls a yardstick of masculine
measurement but it does suggest that
the girls should feel fairly well ac
quainted with themselves before they
decide what to do about marriage
Prof. J. Howard Howson, professor
of religion at Vassar and a leader in
the college’s summer courses on mental
hygiene and family life, has been in
structing his listeners that the young
man who thrills them during a waltz
may bore them without rhyme or rea
son when the music stops. Professor
Howson, active in the new instructions,
says:
“Companionship is an essential qual
ity for marriage. A man and a woman
can’t retain any sort of friendship with
out common interests. They must have
enough fundamental values in common
to count on each other’s instinctive re
action to a new situation On the
superficial side, they must share to a
certain degree in sports, reading, and
other hobbies. Such a knowledge of a
person is not gained intuitively.
# “A girl and a man should see each
tfier moving freely in a group of ap-
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Companionship is an essential
quality for marriage. A man and
a woman can’t retain any sort of
friendship without common in
terests.
proximately the same social status, and
in a variety of situations within that
group, before a definite decision is
made.”
The girls are told to know themselves
first, and then their men.
I)ROF. JOSEPH K.. FOLSOM, profes
* sor of sociology, repeats the same
advice when the girls face him in the
lecture hall.
“It is especially important that mates
be rather similar in aims ahd objec
tives," he says. “Values should be much
alike. The two people may be different
in style, temperament, and methods of
obtaining their objectives The greatest
tragedy of married life is the mating
of two persons whose values in life are
incompatible. This happens most fre
quently when a mating is brought about
through romance without sufficient ac-
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Prot. J Howard Howson (left)
and Prof. Joseph K. Folsom, lead
ers in Vassar’s summer courses on
mental hygiene and family life.
quaintanceship. There is a lack of social
machinery today which would bring
young people together and let them be
come acquainted.
“We need some institution which will
replace the old marriage broker. There
have been college date bureaus a.id
correspondence leagues but they haven’t
got very far yet. It is up to the younger
generation to find away of doing it.”
“That’s all very well,” the cry goes
up from the campus wailing walls
around America, “but if love always
went where it is sent we would choose
somebody who would be fun forever 1
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•But. what.” wall the girls, “can we
do when we love a guy who doesn’t
fill the marriage course bill?”
What can we do when we love a guy
who doesn’t fill the marriage course
bill? Answer that one, please!”
All right. Here’s the answer! Sit
down by the sun-dial or under old
Matthew Vassar’s portrait and consider
all the differences between yourself and
the wearer of the Harvard H or the
Yale Y—or the postman, the lifeguard,
or your roommate’s brother. If you be
long to the same social group, like the
same things and feel pretty much the
same about life, then it’s all right to
be marriage-minded. If you differ very
much —well, kiss him and say goodby
—it will make a nice memory—and in
vestigate somebody else’s status.
Romance and marriage, as it happens,
are two distinctly different things, Vas
sar girls are learning. The cardiac pal
pitations which denote an affection for
one lad may last no longer than the
length of a new spring moon. Or they
may linger into old age. If they are
the result of an interest in someone not
suitable for marriage, they will be
short-lived, the information goes. Don’t
hurry into something which doesn’t
stand the similarity test.
“This question of considering likes
and dislikes is tremendously important,”
Professor Folsom goes on. “A girl
should size up herself, first of all, and
know what she likes and believes. Then
she should meet the man under con
ditions which show him up. Too often
she may know a splendid man but
owing to the fact that they see each
other only briefly in business, they
never grow acquainted.”
r l''HE belief that women are taking the
* main initiative in courtship is denied
by Professor Folsom.
“Males still expect to take the initia
tive in courtship,” he advises. “It is less
true today, perhaps, since more obvious
moves by the girl are tolerated Still
men continue to have a greater ten
dency to resist entanglements into which
women seek to lead them than women
have to resist men. The wise girl will
recognize this situation and will at least
give th’ man the feeling that he is tak
ing the initiative.”
Changing the theme slightly, he con
tinues: “There is no evidence supporting
the old idea that opposites make the best
life partners. The lasting attraction
usually is between similars. Statistics
show that those with similar back
grounds are much more likely to marry
happily than those with unlike back
grounds and Interests ”