Marry Smart: Advice for Finding THE ONE

by Susan Patton

The “Princeton mom” who caused a stir with her controversial letter to the Daily Princetonian offering advice to young women at Princeton about marrying early delivers more unvarnished truths in this smart, straightforward, and witty book of life lessons.

You’re single and you know what you want in your life. And if your dreams include getting married and having children, this fresh new approach to finding the right one at the right time shows the way to make those dreams a reality.

A graduate of one of the first classes of women at Princeton University, Susan Patton has heard smart young women admit they aspire to marriage and motherhood but have no model for pursuing those goals; reflecting on the choices she made in her early twenties, she’s boldly turned the tables on our “career first” conditioning and suggests that you seek out the golden opportunities right in front of you, right now.

In Marry Smart , she shares the wisdom of her experience with warmth, humor, and very straight talk. But this is not your mother’s dating guide— Marry Smart celebrates the vital achievements of traditional marriage and motherhood, and gives you the essential life strategies that no one’s talking about, including how

• strike while the greatest number of single young men is available to you
• attract a man who is your intellectual and emotional equal
• date to find a mate—and how to spot a diamond in the rough
• find total satisfaction in your roles as a wife and mother

Whether or not you are in college, whether your future plans are clear or still undecided, Marry Smart is a must-read for all young women who want to get the most out of love and life.

Genres: Nonfiction, Romance

256 pages, Hardcover

First published March 11, 2014

Reviews

[Carol · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book touts the advantages of allowing men to manipulate your identity to be more desirable. I rename it 50 Shades of Cray.

[Myck · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's refreshing to see that traditional values haven't been lost but are encouraged. I think the greater message, which has been overshadowed by the media, is to define what makes you happy and work diligently to accomplish all that you want to be and have.

[Emily · Rating 1 out of 5]

Whoa.

I'm still decompressing from this book.

Aside from my opinions about the author and her message, which I will definitely address, let me first say that this book isn't particularly well-composed.

After Susan finishes her overview of finding a mate in either your 20s, or dare she say, your 30s (eek, you spinster), she includes a later section about dating in your 50's, how to deal with an empty nest, how to talk to your daughter about how she'll never be more attractive or fertile than she is during her college years (thanks, Mom and Dad.)...and also entertaining in the home. Mmmmkay, Susie girl.

The chapters are very short, and just in case she couldn't keep your attention for four pages or less, there are re-cap boxes on the last page of each chapter for her most important points. Sometimes, the recap is literally the last sentence on the page, again. I thought this book was for "Smart Girls"? Surely, they can garner a point more readily than that.

Anyway, on to the content. So. Susan starts her book with the disclaimer that this book is only geared towards those women who hope to enter into a traditional marriage and have children. However, it's written more broadly, and that's what generally offends (enrages) me.

It's one thing to tell women that wanting to be a mother is nothing to be ashamed of. I agree that you shouldn't feel like wanting to be a mom is a bad thing. However, as Susan continues to lay out her rational and "advice" it goes from bad to worse. She's (as someone who spoke with her on panel said) that crazy aunt that sidles up to you at wedding and tells you you're not getting any younger. Literally. Most of her advice is that you are not getting any younger and your eggs are ticking time bombs. Find a husband now or be doomed to either never have children, or be prepared to shell out tons of money and experience emotional and physical pain while completing in vitro or trying to adopt.

Well, Susan, what about those women who do get married and try to start families only to find that, even in their non-spinster years, they can't conceive? Lesser parenting for you, sorry.

Other sage advice:
-Settle.
-Don't be a slut. Or worse, a drunk slut. If you get raped and you've been drinking, that's on you.
-YOU ARE SO FERTILE RIGHT NOW. BUT YOU ARE GETTING LESS FERTILE EVERY SECOND. PANIC.
-Every child needs a father. But it's okay if you get divorced because you're not right for each other. You really just need the dude's genetic contribution.
-"Old" moms (older than 35) have "defect" babies.
-No one trusts unmarried women in their 30s. And no one wants to date them.
-When your marriage falls apart though, dating in your 50s is SO MUCH FUN.
-You should stay home and raise the kids. But don't expect to be in the work force when they go to college. It's okay, if you would have worked, you would have gotten fired ("downsized") anyway. Good luck in your empty nest
-Never discuss your paycheck. Unless you're Susan Patton. SHE MADE $350,000 A YEAR WHILE WORKING FROM HOME AND BEING THE CLASS MOTHER.
-Feminists are evil. They should put their bras back on and stop emasculating men.
-Parents, please discuss your daughters' fertility with them as soon as they start college. Their eggs are already drying up.

I could go on. But I'm going to stop. Susan doesn't fact check. Susan relies on her personal advice that seems better left in the 1950s, which she thinks were a much better time for women anyway, since their career prospects were so limited they really had no better options than having babies right away.

If you want to be a mom, that's your life and you can make those decisions for yourself. If your ONLY goal in life is to have children, maybe this book will be good for you. If you actually want to have a good relationship, a family, AND a career, I suggest you seek other sages. Unless you like being really angry for 200 pages.

[Ginger · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just heard this author on NPR. I WILL not be reading this book. I am not feminist but I do believe men and women are complete in of themselves- they don't need to be married or have children to love a full life. This author just made me feel like a failure for not getting married in college when I should of and having the children I probably won't have. I could go on but I will refrain.
It has been a long time since I had equally strong reactions to gag and to scream in anger.
Also I am rating this one even though I didn't read it as I want it to have low ratings. blech

[LK · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I wrote a letter to WSJ complaining about this book (and they published it!!). I disagree with her premise that the best catch are around you in college, but guess what?? You will find an even BETTER catch as you grow and become even better.

She is 100% correct in that women should act classy and not slutty, but she needs to get over the notion that college boys are the best bet.

[Kesha · Rating 4 out of 5]

The advice in this book is so right and so wrong simultaneously.I plan to advise my daughter to be open to some of the tips namely the suggestion that women should marry someone as smart or smarter than you. Successful men have prerequisites before they marry so successful women should operate with the same standards.

[Kelly · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book gets a higher rating than I thought I might because there IS actually useful information included, but its “cons” are many. Many.

The author of “Marry Smart”, Susan Patton, gained fame in 2013 when she wrote a letter to the campus newspaper at her alma mater, Princeton University. Known as the “Princeton Mom,” she encouraged the women at Princeton to reevaluate their priorities on campus to include husband (and potential father) hunting. The letter went viral, and now someone has given her a publishing deal.

Before we go any further, I should tell you that I went to a women’s college (Chatham College, now Chatham University) to be exact, and that experience colors the way that I look at any book with the main argument that women should work very hard to find their husband in college because it’s all downhill from there. Clearly I went to a college where that wasn’t an option on campus, though we were by no means limited in the opportunity to meet men, given that two very large universities were literally right down the street. Still, the world-ready woman in me rebels at the notion that if I don’t try to find a husband early, and therefore have children early, that my life will be barren and disappointing. I know several people who met their husbands during college and are very happy that they have those long-term relationships, but I would be hard-pressed to find one of them (women’s college graduate or not) that felt that if they hadn’t locked that relationship down in college that they were doing themselves a disservice.

As I said, there is useful information in the book, and a lot of it stems from the very real-world advice that Patton offers as a human resources executive, though identifying herself as a “HR Babe” is somewhat nauseating. She spends various parts of the book advocating for women to be active in trying new things on campus to broaden their horizons and encouraging them to re-invent themselves (within reason) because college is a great time to figure out not only who you are, but who you want to be. Those are actually great arguments, and I did both during my time at college. When she sticks to the HR advice, including being mindful of your online persona and perhaps, out of college, going for the smaller role at a better-known company than a bigger position at a place you’ll have to constantly explain, there are legitimate lessons to be learned. There is really quite a bit of empowering advice present. It’s just that it’s all buried within the “make sure you marry and pop out a couple before your looks are gone” crap that you can’t really take the good stuff seriously.

I said earlier that there are many “cons” to the book. Let me give you some of them.

Patton’s view is pretty limited. She talks about coming from a middle class family, her parents Holocaust survivors, but a lot of her arguments come from an elitist (perhaps even discriminatory) place. Now, in this regard she share some of the criticism that Sheryl Sandberg faced with “Lean In,” but I think she and Sandberg differ greatly in the way they believe that women should be balancing home, family, and career. Sandberg insists you can have it all; Patton presumes that you really don’t want it all, but you’re afraid to say that.

Patton also has a decided hetero bias. She explicitly states her “ability to discern the difference between feminists and lesbians is limited.” Having gone to a women’s college I know many feminists, and I know many lesbians. This is not one of the SAT logic questions where you should infer that just because Jane Doe is a feminist she must also be a lesbian or vice versa. It just doesn’t work that way.

The biggest parts of Patton’s arguments are that women after the age of about 28 might as well stock up on the cats and just learn to be happy with the life they have, given the fact that they’ve thrown away the chance to have a child, or at least one with less of a chance of disability due to advanced maternal age. Or, you can feel free to draw up the bridge early if you’re overweight, have bad teeth, or don’t dress nicely. (But don’t dress provocatively because then you’ve earned whatever you get in the form of harassment or rape.) Being a 34-year-old obese single woman with braces, I’m pretty much out of the running unless I give in to gastric bypass because yes, expensive elective procedures will make everything better. Good thing my reproductive organs were already suspect because clearly they wouldn’t be cooperative now anyway.

In case you do want to marry and have children, Patton makes sure that she includes a chapter on cooking (there’s a meatloaf recipe) and party-throwing. However, I have thrown major dinner parties – multiple courses, carefully planned menus and decorations, invitations and guest gifts – and none of that has helped me “land a man.” Similarly I have married friends who had can make dinner but have no ability to Martha Stewart it up. If you want to throw a party, great! But you can’t believe that this is a full-proof way to get the husband and baby that we all must desperately want inside. Nor that throwing said party after you have the husband and baby will make you any more like June Cleaver, the obvious perfect ideal.

My final argument against Patton is that she actively encourages young women to ignore their careers in favor of getting married. In fact, she advocates for women to spend 75% of their time to getting married and having babies, and only 25% of the time on their careers. Not only does this fall into the elitist stance mentioned earlier – most women just don’t have the ability to do this – but it negates the very real issues of the wage gap and the need for women who are working more and longer than ever before, on top of just making ends meet, to be mindful of their savings and retirement funds, something ALL financial experts advise having. She also says that “a ticking biological clock…will always be an impediment to true gender equality,” and makes a special point of pointing out that maternal leave policies are modernized. I would argue that’s a false statement when the US is one of the few industrialized countries in the world that doesn’t have real maternal leave policies.

There was only one statistic that I could find in the entire book, and it had no attributed source, so I can’t even call it a real statistic. Patton admits that the book is made up of anecdotes and a whole lot of opinion, which is fine, expect it’s hard to lend any credence to her opinions when the only factual backup she includes are biological, and even then it’s suspect. (Read the included quotation below about STDs and you’ll understand.)

As I said in the very beginning, there IS valuable content in the book. If Patton had written this is a “how-to” guide for young women in college to position themselves for the best start in to the “real world,” as the HR executive she is, it might have been a success, but at every opportunity (and some that are clearly a stretch for applicability), she shoehorns the argument that your biological time is a tickin’ into the narrative and yet again you have to take a deep breath and resist the urge to swear loudly.

Notable quotations
• “The female body is a receptacle for all sorts of diseases that men escape.” (pg. 15) I don’t think that’s accurate. Are there STDS that only women get?
• “Find a good husband early – it’s better for you, and better for your baby.” (pg. 31)
• “True liberation comes from knowing you always have a date on Saturday night, that there will be one special valentine for you every February 14, knowing exactly who you’ll be locking lips with on New Year’s Eve, and that through thick and thick and thin you have a partner for life.” (pg. 20)
• “It would seem that the mark of true success would be to pay others to do everything else so that you could be with your children, in the comfort of your home, making dinner for your family and planting flowers in your backyard.” (pg. 125)
• “In truth, in your twenties you are evaluating your dates for much more than just the position of your husband…you are looking for a father for your future children. Finding the best possible man and (genetic material) for your offspring is an enormous responsibility.” (pg. 218)
• “Remember that you have a limited window of opportunity within which to bear your own children, and finding the right husband will be the cornerstone of your future happiness and the foundation of your future family.” (pg. 50) My college motto is that “That are daughters may be as cornerstone,” so this once was a special level of B.S. for me.

[Mary Louise Sanchez · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was front and center on the shelf of new library books and I decided to read it to see if I married smart. According to the author--I did marry smart because I found and married my husband our last year in college in 1968. There were many things I agreed with, because I have a traditional marriage. I choose to stay home when the children were growing up, even though I had a degree. It was the right decision for me. Even though our money situation was tight, I used my education to learn ways to help our family of four children from 1971-1984. I finally entered the work force in 1984 and was so glad I was able to stay home when I did, after seeing mothers of infants struggling with guilt and difficulties trying to balance family and work.

Traditional marriages and family life may not be for everyone, but it's good for this generation of 20 year olds to hear this perspective and decide for themselves what they really want out of life.

[Liz De Coster · Rating 1 out of 5]

Requested an e-arc because of all the discussion around Patton's article, I was curious against my better judgement. I wish I'd listened to myself, because I really did not enjoy reading this book (and frankly didn't really finish). Luckily, her advice is so snobby, elitist, and specific it won't really apply to the vast majority of humanity, but I'm sure it will be widely read. Most of her faults are pretty generic - reducing people to hackneyed stereotypes, fat-shaming, "explaining" via biological reductionism - and even the few tiny morsels of good advice she gives is so difficult to pick out that it does little to redeem the book overall. For example, she advises that women be nice to men, because you never know what/who they might turn out to be -- couching basic good advice about politeness in (a) social climbing and (b) women-do-this, men-do-that stereotypes. Hard pass.

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Old Fashion advice for those seeking a more traditional life. The only constant in life is change but certain principles never will, a truth many would have you believe antiquated and retrogressive. But the facts are plain: dreams don't just happen, you work for everything you get; no one- man or woman- will pay for what they can get for free;

[Lily · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I was in my 20s, this book would have sounded totally retrograde to my ears. Now that I am in my 50s, having married and divorced with kids, I have to admit Patton sounds out unpleasant truths. Honestly, it would be better to recognize these tenets earlier on in life so that one doesn't waste time nor effort with the wrong person, the wrong crowd, the wayward path. You are only in your 20s once, max that time out for yourself, your goals, your future whatever it wants to be.
Women and girls are discouraged from stating that they want marriage and children in their future. As if admitting so would negate our other achievements. However, we do go about EXPECTING marriage and children. Paradoxically, we work hard to manifest our other expectations in life - college, job, promotion, that cool car, that dream vacation. But we don't put in similar planning and effort with finding a suitable life partner.
Little surprise that many stumble on this last expectation.
Lots of people want to say they are more mature, more ready when they are older. Everyone I've known for the past 25 years has been remarkably consistent in character and personality. The immature and petty ones remain so, the generous and kind spirits remain constant as well as all the types in-between. I can see how troubled people need more time to mature, but telling an entire generation that it should wait and prolong adolescence doesn't benefit the majority. Neither were we biologically programmed to do so.
Some reviewers misunderstand her point about marrying smart. The partner doesn't have to be Ivy educated - that person should be just as smart as you are. The sad truth is it's difficult to maintain love and respect for someone who doesn't match your IQ, makes poor decision, dissipates marital assets and yet expects equal footing in domestic and financial decisions. Or even worse, when such a spouse expects to be dominant in the marriage.
There is nothing wrong with thinking about college as a marriage market. Without shame, we pretty much consider it a career market too. Neither of which are the stated lofty goals of a liberal arts institution by the way. Additionally, what I said earlier about being in your 20s only once applies also to the college years. You are only in college once (or maybe grad school later) - it's expensive and short lived so max that time - make friends, network, join clubs, take the best classes, impress those teachers, challenge yourself, prospect your life partner, take all it has to offer because when it's over, it's over.

I think the backlash against her is not dissimilar to the eyeroll we give to our own parents when they try to dispense unsolicited advice. Those old farts are kind of annoying, but how often were they right about things?

[Dylan Zhou · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book about how one should behave and what one should look for if the goal is to get married and raise a family. While it is mostly aimed at college-aged women, much of the advice is also applicable for men, like the importance of finding someone who has similar educational background, not letting indecision hold you back, treating finding love as a methodical search, and many more insights. The book is organized into small snippets of quickly digestible pieces of advice, and the author's (self-admittedly) blunt voice and funny stories keeps it entertaining. I wish I had read this book earlier on in college, or perhaps even before college.

One thing I didn't like as much was Patton's political references, which perhaps were a response to many of her detractors who don't believe in traditional families, but at times it felt like she gave too much attention to her defense.

Overall, it is great to hear an older person's perspective on family-building, as in college much of our attention is spent on schoolwork and professional development and not very many people talk about relationships, especially long-term ones.

[Donnell · Rating 2 out of 5]

A recent novel centers around an Upper East side woman, a shadowy husband/former husband, a business counseling largely upper class NYC women, personal experience of child raising but not of a daughter, an advice book about to break....

But Marry Smart is NOT the novel You Should Have Known even if it could be called, in the author's mind: You Should Have Found That Husband Back in College. (By the way, the husband in the novel was found back in college.),

Anyway, I agree with several points in this book like the missing out on the joys of courtship in a hook-up culture and the need for young women to do all they can to keep from getting passing out drunk at parties (though no allowance is made for the young women who do drink sensibly but don't know their drink has been drugged). Also, the call to not take personally, the words of those who will cut you down because its an easy and cheap way for them to make them selves feel better in the face of your accomplishments. Oh and I most agree with the idea that the number one must have quality in The One is kindness.

Why is it, though, that this particular woman has the authority to write a book such as this? The author's coming to prominence via a letter that went viral on the Internet smells of reality show fame, like a book on how to be the perfect wife from the star of a Real Housewives series. Also I could spend the whole review on how/why a book called Marry Smart names Jackie Kennedy and Grace Kelly as role models? In one sense the two did marry smart, one becoming a First Lady and the other a princess. Yet both had famously less than kind husbands when it came the other women added to their relationships. And then there is the whole "this is a book about how to marry smart by a woman who has never done that."

The author seems to be saying that women, in her generation and now, should/should have scope[d] out a husband while in college. Even if she doesn't marry him for a few years she should select him and then be sure to marry well before her thirties when her eggs are getting pretty old.

So how would this have worked for me, as someone from her generation (UC Berkeley 1979)? Well, good luck to meeting, and getting to know, people you interact with on campus at a school of 30,000 where most of your contacts are here one moment and then absorbed by the masses the next. BUt I did go to a top law school where the interactions were more substantive. However, before classes even started one of the men, speaking for several others, announced "I would not want my wife to be a lawyer--when I come home from work I'm going to want to relax, I don't want to have to think.") There were at least three, kind, not-flashy, guys whom I encountered who would have highly pleased Ms. Patton. And I remember consciously even trying to think like Ms. Patton at the time--but it didn't work, there was no chemistry on my end and I couldn't manufacture it.

Ms. Patton appears to have a special hostility for "feminists," those crazed creatures who belittle young women if they dare mention they want to have children. I can't say if such creatures exist now. If they do, they may simply be a few over compensators for the past situation. For such women were infinitely few back in the late 1970's and the early 1980's mainstream. The message back then was; "Why do you want to go to law school when you will just quit to have kids?" and if I said I planned to work after my kids the message was "oh only a terrible mother would let her kids be raised by someone else."

Concerning the women of today, Ms. Patton asserts that they need to get that husband and go have those kids--because work will always be there for them but the ability to have kids can be lost. She holds up as a warning--twice--her fabulously successful clients who have great jobs but are deeply unhappy--because they are in their mid thirties with no husband and no kids. Yet a few chapters later, the author is telling us that if you want to get a job in your fifties after being out the work force for awhile (e.g. the 18 years it takes to raise a kid) for get it! No one will hire you.

Finally I have to say a bit about Ms. Patton's strong Republicanism. The idea that any one can be thin and super successful if they "just do it." There is no awareness that finding someone to pay you $160 an hour to call businesses about their organizational structure is not so easy, and especially if you don't have New York City and Ivy League connections. Also, developing a stay at home career that earns $350,000, again--not so easy. Similarly, her ability to pay for a year at Princeton by making 150 party masks--great work IF you can get it.

[Bria · Rating 1 out of 5]

Some valid concerns, but terrible presentation. Each chapter was about 3 pages long and concluded at the end with summarizing bullet points. If we're such smart women, can't we figure out the main points on our own? Not to mention some of the awful tidbits of advice peppered throughout (Don't use profanity! Get your plastic surgery taken care of before college! You must know how to cook for your man!). I don't disagree with her main premise, as it's harder to meet people in general after college, much less the one person that you want to spend the rest of your life with, but I strongly disliked this book. Save yourself some time and just read her viral letters - this 238 book really doesn't add much to what she originally wrote in a couple pages.

[Rex Libris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am ambivalent about this book. What it is, as is evident from the title, is a guide on how a gal ought to intelligently select and marry the right person to be her husband and father of her children. Much of it is common sense, so often lacking youth; and much of it is cold, hard reality that people love to ignore.

While the message is very important, sometimes Patton's advice seems almost mercenary. Yes, these are important choices, yes you ought to be wise in your choices, but if you are too calculating will you succeed in landing a good spouse?

[Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think the author's central thesis (focusing on family AND career) is not bad in and of itself. It's kind of refreshing in a world where ambition is praised more than domesticity. Neither is bad, but one is not better than the other, and they are not mutually exclusive. I also liked Patton's blunt delivery. She is very open and honest.

That said, I don't know why this was an entire book. She could have left this in letter form and not have lost anything. I thought the book could have used some editing and felt she was just repeating herself.

Just read the original letter.

[Tra · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is outdated and gives off vibes of a guide for 1950s housewives. There seemed to be a lot of repetition around the key points. The personal stories included didn't add value to the content. The tone is condescending throughout and the author seems to be awful pretentious. I find it utterly ironic that she gives advice to parents with daughters when she doesn't have daughters of her own (two sons). In my view this author is extremely narrow minded and I'm flabbergasted this book ever reached publication. I would not recommend this book to anyone.

[Anne Fabing · Rating 1 out of 5]

An outdated and unrealistic stereotypical book from an anti-feminist. Susan Patton tries to convince women that marriage is the be all and end all to ultimate happiness. The last chapter is even dedicated to parents and insists that they must nag their daughters to marry and have children before it's too late. Her advice in this book would roll the progress women have made backwards 50 years.

[Marjorie Langlois · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I am totally not in agreement with all of Patton's message (I disagree on many different values and views of feminism), I liked the bottom line message of the book. It's all about confronting yourself and being true to what you really want, and it is sometimes difficult to do while looking at life through society's lens.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked this book. Basically, she says that if you want to get married and have kids, you shouldn't feel ashamed of that and you should work to make it happen in your life. She also reminds us that we have a limited period of time to get married and have biological children, so if that's something we want for our life, we shouldn't put it off too long. Some good, solid advice here.

[Cindy Handelsman · Rating 1 out of 5]

I expected this to be bad but this was worse then I could have imagined. The author raised two sons and thinks that if a girl is sexually assaulted, it is her fault. I just hope her husband, who was smart enough to divorce her, has taught his children better than she has.

[Cheryl · Rating 1 out of 5]

There were times I literally wanted to throw this book across the room! Goes against everything I was raised to be believe. But if you are someone going to college in search of marriage this is a must read for you.

[Rebecca Kenneweg · Rating 2 out of 5]

Her two points
You will likely never be surrounded by more people equal to yourself intellectually than you are in college so take advantage of it

If you really want a family you have to devote time to making it happen

It is hard to argue

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Impassioned and zealous advice for women who who want to marry and have babies in "traditional relationships."

[Kati Polodna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Where was this book when I was 18?

[Faythe · Rating 2 out of 5]

I only read this because it was at the library and I'd heard all the talk about this book. Some parts are pretty cringe-worthy, but that's to be expected.

[Yvonne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a fan. This lady is incredibly pretentious. Took me forever to read through.