Feminist indoctrination at secular college campuses nationwide have not ameliorated God-given longings for marriage and family on the part of many (if not most) women. The journal Sex Roles is a self-described “Interdisciplinary, behavioral science journal with a feminist perspective [which] publishes original research reports that illuminate the underlying processes and consequences of gender role socialization, gendered perceptions and behaviors, and stereotypes.” Nevertheless, in September 2005 this journal published an article by Dr. Judith Blakemore, Carol A. Lawton and Lesa Rae Vartanian entitled, “I Can’t Wait to Get Married: Gender Differences in Drive to Marry.” The Abstract of the article reads:
In this study we examined a new construct—the Drive to Marry (DTM). Young single men and women (149 men and 246 women) rated their desire to get married and completed measures of their valuing of marital, parental, and occupational roles; concern about others’ views of them; and feminist attitudes. We found that women had a higher DTM than did men. In both genders, DTM was predicted by the value of parental role and by concern about others’ views of them. In women, DTM was also predicted by traditional attitudes toward gender roles, and there was a trend for women who valued the occupational role to have a lower DTM. Conservative women, women who valued the parental role, and women with a higher DTM were also more likely to want to use the title “Mrs.” and to adopt their husband’s surname.
The somewhat progressive, pro-family group World Congress of Families offers the following commentary on the article:
The increasing age of first-marriage among women might suggest that women today have become more like men in their interest in settling down, marrying, and starting a family. But a study of college students by psychologists at Indiana-Purdue University in Fort Wayne reveals that young women remain – even after a generation of feminism – significantly more motivated to marry than young men.
The article is not freely available, but I have e-mailed Dr. Blackmore to see if she might send it to me for posting. It’d be interesting to compare Dr. Blackmore’s findings to the (more conservative) American Values report Hooking Up, Hanging Out and Hoping for Mr. Right: College Women on Mating and Dating Today.