I have been pondering why women born in the 1930s & 1940s should have been so unusually keen on early marriage. (Till death us do part?)
Undoubtedly one factor would have been the fear of getting left on the shelf (dreadful phrase). Their generation would have been all too familiar with the twin phenomena of elderly maiden aunts & spinster schoolteachers. Stalwarts, every one of them.
There were so many spinsters because the natural shortage of men of marriageable age (relative to women) had been multiplied many times by the carnage of World War I. The mothers of daughters born in the 30s & 40s were thus particularly fearful that their daughters might not be quick enough off the mark & so might be condemned to spinsterhood & childlessness.
There might also have been a feeling that World War II had had the same effect on the male/female ratio as had WWI. Not so, & not least because of the grisly fact that bombing civilians causes just as many female casualties.
And so girls growing up in the 1950s especially would have been bombarded with advice & warnings. Dont be a bluestocking, they would say, men dont like clever women. No one will want you if youre too clever
Postscript: Virginia Nicholsons Singled Out, being read as R4 Book of the Week 20 August 2007, explores the lives of post WW1 spinsters
