Impact of education on women's chances to marry
MacLachlan briefly describes the argument of one of her professors at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that educated women had more trouble marrying. MacLachlan indicates that she believed this to be true when she was faced with pursuing a higher education or focusing on her family; however, she ends the excerpt by describing the accomplishments of her two daughter-in-laws and her contention that for women of the mid-1970s, when the interview was conducted, things had changed.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Emily S. MacLachlan, July 16, 1974. Interview G-0038. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- JACQUELYN HALL:
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Groves? Ernest Groves?
- EMILY S. MACHLACHLAN:
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Groves, yes.
- JACQUELYN HALL:
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He was here?
- EMILY S. MACHLACHLAN:
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Yes. I took his seminar, his course on the family. I wrote my term paper
on the Chinese family. Yes, Groves was here.
- HUGH BRINTON:
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He was the one who said that the higher education a girl got, the less
chance she had of marrying. He said that …
- EMILY S. MACHLACHLAN:
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Oh, yes.
- JACQUELYN HALL:
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He said what?
- EMILY S. MACHLACHLAN:
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Well, the girls who had careers, you know, generally turned out to be
spinsters, you know. It was true. Girls were not expected to have
careers once they married. They should have children. And I suppose that
that was so dinned into us, that you had to make your choice. Of course,
girls today who want to, don't have to make the choice. I
have two daughters-in-law who are career girls. And Gretchen works for
the Southern Regional Council, they give her a good salary.
She's just finished a big study of
poverty in the South based on the latest statistics. My daughter-in-law,
Mary Belcher Maclachlan, in Columbia, South Carolina, is married to my
professor son, professor of anthropology at the University of South
Carolina, associate professor now, and she is getting her Ph.D. in
counseling psychology from the University of Texas where
…
- JACQUELYN HALL:
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What is Gretchen's last name?
- EMILY S. MACHLACHLAN:
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Well, Gretchen Ehrmann grew up in Gainesville. Dr. Ehrmann was a member
of the sociology department, so the marriage between Bruce and Gretchen,
Bruce Maclachlan and Gretchen Ehrmann, was a marriage of perfect
homogeny, as we say in sociology. Their fathers were sociologists in the
same department. Their mothers were very much alike, liberal women.
Peggy Ehrmann was very active in local politics, she was state
Democratic committeewoman from our county. She was the national
committeewoman from Florida from '57 or '58 to
1960 and attended the National Democratic Convention in Los Angeles. She
ran for national committeewoman and lost to a conservative in 1960. Dick
Ehrmann was the first chairman of the NAACP chapter there at Gainesville
and on the Executive Committee of the Florida Human Relations Council.
He was very much criticized for his views on the race issue, so, Mrs.
Ehrmann was politically active, Dr. Ehrmann not only was a
human-relations-civil rights man, but he taught a course in marriage and
the family, and he made one of the first studies of dating and sex
behavior of students. He made an early study of University of Florida
students' habits of dating and sex life. And it was
published. It was a classic study.
