I admit I felt a bit anxious before meeting Susan Patton, the infamous “Princeton Mom.”
By the time we shook hands at Princeton’s Whig Hall, Patton had already been all over the news media with her odd, 1950s-era message that young women should spend 75% of their college career focused on finding a husband. From the time they become sophomores, Patton warned, women’s dating options begin a steady decline. “Men regularly marry women who are younger, less intelligent, less educated,” Patton wrote in a much-reviledletter to The Daily Princetonian. “It’s amazing how forgiving men can be about a woman’s lack of erudition, if she is exceptionally pretty. Smart women can’t (shouldn’t) marry men who aren’t at least their intellectual equal. As Princeton women, we have almost priced ourselves out of the market.”
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