172 



The Journal of Hcredit}' 



is due \2) to some fault of their own, 

 this mi^ht be (a) a desire not to marry, 

 because of preference for a "career," or 

 the necessity of earninj^ money to 

 supjjort parents; or (b) inability to 

 attract men. Both of these reasons 

 are doubtless operative. It is difficult 

 to say which is the more important, 

 since a decision can only be based on 

 personal opinion. 



EXTRA-COLLEGE MATING 



Thouj^h most of the Stanford K'irls 

 fail to find husbands in collcj^^', they 

 yet mi^ht do so after graduation. 

 \Vh>' do so many of them fail to? 

 Again, it may be (1) that they do not 

 want to marry, or (2) that they want 

 to marry but are not asked to do so. 

 The reasons under (1) would be the 

 same as those considered in the pre- 

 ceding section, namely, preference for 

 a career or necessity of sujiporting 

 relatives; together with, in some cases, 

 the develoijment of a cynical attitude 

 toward marriage due to faulty educa- 

 tion; or more frequently, the demand 

 of a higher standard on the part of 

 suitors than the men of the alumnae's 

 accjuaintance can meet. 



But it seems likely that the greater 

 part of the women graduates come 

 under (2). They remain unmarried, 

 but not from choice. Their failure to 

 find mates might be because (a) they 

 have no opportunity to meet men, due 

 to the nature of the careers which they 

 have chosen, e. g., teaching school; or 

 (b) they meet men Vnit fail to attract 

 them, because of physical imperfec- 

 tions, (lack of health or good looks) or 

 educational defects. The latter would 

 include cases of too little emotion, or 

 too much knowledge (a young man 

 is often unwilling to marry a girl who 

 knows more than he does), or lack of 

 the kind of knowledge necessary for 

 home-making, which leads men to dis- 

 criminate against them and prefer the 



girl who, it is supjjosed, will be less 

 extrax'agant, or who will not need so 

 many servants. 



In part exjjlanation of the failure 

 of the Stanford women to marry, it 

 might be urged that the marriage rate 

 of the entire state of California is 

 notably low.^ But it has been seen 

 that the Stanford men marry in larger 

 numbers; therefore the failure of Stan- 

 ford women to marry cannot be en- 

 entirely credited to external causes. 

 Moreover, Price found'' the marriage 

 rate of Universitv of California women 

 graduates, 1895-icS99, to be 65.7. This 

 would suggest that the low marriage 

 rate of vStanford women may be due 

 in part to their character and raises the 

 question whether this unmarriageable 

 character is inherent and ineradicable, 

 or whether it is mainly due to the faulty 

 education the\' receive at Stanford or 

 previous to going there. 



THE EUGENIC PROBLEM 



Eugenically, the problem is clearly 

 defined. A group of young women, 

 which in innate intelligence is probably 

 not surjmssed by that of any other 

 American college, has been examined, 

 and it has been found that only half 

 of its members ever marry. This 

 means a racial loss which cannot be 

 viewed with comj^lacenc)'. 



It may be granted that many of them, 

 even before coming to Stanford, lean 

 toward celibate careers and away from 

 motherhood. This might be considered 

 to lessen the blame which attaches to 

 the university; or on the other hand, a 

 eugenist might argaie that, when con- 

 fronted with a grouj) of girls selected 

 in that way, the university ought to 

 make all the more eiTort to change 

 their ideals. 



This point does not mitigate the 

 eugenic gravity of the problem itself. 

 It could be mitigat:d only by showing 

 that these girls are germinallv deficient 



'•California's viarlv ri-ninl of ii.S marriages per 1(),(MH) unmarried adults is the lowest of 

 any State in the Union' (see Bureau of the Census, Bulletin ^)(k p. U, 1^14). But this docs not 

 tell the whole story, for ecnsus figures (l.Sth Rep., Vol. i, p. 528) also show that the percentage 

 of adult females iri California who are unmarried is smaller than that in three-quarters of the 

 other states. 



•Sec.SV;;/ Frnticisco Examiner, (kUyhir 1, 1916. or |()t KV\i. oi- Hkkkiutv, January, 1<'17, 

 p. 4.?. 



