The Condensed Courtship Clock: How Elite Women Manage Self-development and Marriage Ideals

• In Event: 223 - Section on Aging and the Life Course Paper Session. Life Course Construction in Challenging Circumstances

Abstract

Heterosexual college-educated women are increasingly delaying marriage. This complicates the relationship between marriage and adult status, which were closely linked in previous decades. Using in-depth interviews with 36 single, college-educated women older than 25, the authors examine how elite women balance norms for personal development with the pursuit of a spouse. The authors find that women pursue self-development before concentrating on finding a partner, creating a time-crunch that we call a condensed courtship clock. This clock creates social pressures and personal anxiety as the time to fulfill society’s expectations for marriage and childbearing runs out. The condensed courtship clock encourages women to emphasize marriage over self-development and preserves the normative power of class-based beliefs about ideal family formation.

Authors

• Katherine F Fallon, University of Wisconsin, Madison

• Casey Lorene Stockstill, University of Wisconsin-Madison