学得好,嫁得好,活得好! 做新三好女生!

TODAY women earn almost 60 percent of all bachelor's degrees and more than half of master's and Ph.D.'s. Many people believe that, while this may be good for women as income earners, it bodes ill for their marital prospects.

如今几乎60%的学士学位、超过一半的硕士和博士学位是由女性获得的。很多人相信尽管这也许能帮助女性多赚取些收入，但对他们的婚姻前景却不妙。

As Kate Bolick wrote in a much-discussed article in The Atlantic last fall, American women face "a radically shrinking pool of what are traditionally considered to be 'marriageable' men — those who are better educated and earn more than they do." Educated women worry that they are scaring away potential partners, and pundits claim that those who do marry will end up with unsatisfactory matches. They point to outdated studies suggesting that women with higher earnings than their husbands do more housework to compensate for the threat to their mates' egos, and that men who earn less than their wives are more likely to experience erectile dysfunction.

正如凯特·鲍力克去年秋季发表在《大西洋月刊》上一篇广为讨论的文章中写道的那样，美国女性“正面临着传统上适婚男性急剧减少的状况。这些男性受到的教育良好，而且赚得也多。受过良好教育的女性担心他们会让潜在的伴侣望而却步，专家声称最终那些结婚的人婚姻都不尽人意。他们暗示过去的研究显示 收入比丈夫高的女性做的家务多，这样可以弥补对男性伴侣自尊的威胁，而且收入比妻子地低的男性更有可能患勃起功能障碍。

Is this really the fate facing educated heterosexual women: either no marriage at all or a marriage with more housework and less sex? Nonsense. That may have been the case in the past, but no longer. For a woman seeking a satisfying relationship as well as a secure economic future, there has never been a better time to be or become highly educated.

要么不碰婚姻，要么就是婚后家务不断、且鲜有性生活，女异性恋者的命运就该如此吗？胡扯。过去也许是这样，现在变了。女性想要有个满意的伴侣和稳定的经济未来，没有比提高教育水平更好了。

For more than a century, women often were forced to choose between an education and a husband. Of women who graduated from college before 1900, more than three-quarters remained single. As late as 1950, one-third of white female college graduates ages 55 to 59 had never married, compared with only 7 percent of their counterparts without college degrees.

一个多世纪以来，女性通常不得不在教育和丈夫之间做出选择。1900年前，女大学生中超过3/4 的人单身。1950年时，年龄在55至59之间的有1/3拥有大学学历的白人女性从未嫁人，相比没有大学学历的对照组，这一比例仅占7%。。

Some of these women chose to stay single, of course, and that choice has always been easier and more rewarding for educated women. But the low marriage rates of educated women in the past were also because of the romantic and sexual prejudices of men. One physician explained the problem in Popular Science Monthly in 1905: An educated woman developed a "self-assertive, independent character" that made it "impossible to love, honor and obey" as a real wife should. He warned that as more middle-class women attended college, middle-class men would look to the lower classes to find uneducated wives.

其中有些女性选择单身，当然，这个选择对受过良好教育的女性是容易做的、也是值得的。但是过去受过良好教育的女性结婚率低也是由于男性的浪漫和性别偏见。一位内科医生在1905年的《大众科学期刊》上这样解释这个问题：受过良好教育的女性形成了“自信、独立的品质”，这样她们就没有了现实生活中妻子应有的热爱、尊重和服从的性格。他警告到：越来越多的中产阶级女性去念大学后，中产阶级男性将向更低的阶级去寻找那些没受过教育的人做老婆。

That is exactly what happened in the mid-20th century. From 1940 to the mid-1970s, the tendency for men to marry down educationally became more pronounced and the cultural ideal of hypergamy — that women must marry up — became more insistent.

20世纪中叶的情况就是如此。从1940年至20世纪70年代，男性娶的女性受教育的水平没自己高的现象比较普遍，高攀（女性嫁给比自己好的男性）的文化理想也是一贯坚持的。

Postwar dating manuals advised women to "play dumb" to catch a man — and 40 percent of college women in one survey said they actually did so. As one guidebook put it: "Warning! ... Be careful not to seem smarter than your man." If you hide your intelligence, another promised, "you'll soon become the little woman to be pooh-poohed, patronized and wed."

二战后的约会指南建议女性，要抓住男人的心，女人得“装傻充愣”，在一份调查中，40%的大学女性称他们就是这样做的。一本手册如此建议：“当心！...... 别让自己看上去比你的男人聪明。” 如果能隐藏你的智慧，“很快你就会变成小女人，被男人怜爱和保护，并步入婚姻。”

Insulting as it may have been, such advice was largely sound. Studying national surveys on mate preferences, David M. Buss, a psychologist at the University of Texas, and his colleagues found that in 1956, education and intelligence were together ranked 11th among the things men sought in a mate. Much more important to them was finding a good cook and housekeeper who was refined, neat and had a pleasing disposition. By 1967, education and intelligence had moved up only one place, to No. 10, on men's wish lists.

尽管听起来不太顺耳，这些建议大体上还是正确的。研究全国的择偶喜好调查之后，得克萨斯大学的心理学家戴维·布斯和他的同事发现，1956年时，在男性寻求伴侣的品质中，教育和智力并列排名第11位。他们更想找的是找个好厨师和家庭主妇，她得待人礼貌、举止高雅、心情开朗。 1967年时，男士的意向榜单上，教育和智力支上升了1位，排到第10位。

Men in the postwar period were threatened by the thought of a woman with more or even as much education as they had. One man who taught at a women's college in the 1950s told me his colleagues used to joke that once they knew a woman had earned a Ph.D., they didn't even need to ask what she had specialized in: clearly, it was in "Putting Hubby Down."

二战后，一想到有个女人的受到的教育比自己多，甚至一样多，男人就会觉得受到威胁了。20世纪50年代曾经在女子学院任教的一位男士告诉我说，知道一个女性有了博士学位之后，他们甚至不会问她从事什么专业研究，就开玩笑地说专业是“把相公比下去。”

But over the past 30 years, these prejudices have largely disappeared. By 1996, intelligence and education had moved up to No. 5 on men's ranking of desirable qualities in a mate. The desire for a good cook and housekeeper had dropped to 14th place, near the bottom of the 18-point scale. The sociologist Christine B. Whelan reports that by 2008, men's interest in a woman's education and intelligence had risen to No. 4, just after mutual attraction, dependable character and emotional stability.

30多年过去了，这些偏见大部分已经不复存在了。1996年时，智力和教育状况已经上升到男人寻求伴侣理想的品质排名的第5 位。找一位厨师和家庭主妇已经降到第14位，接近一共18个排名的底部了。社会学家克里斯汀·威尔兰（Christine B. Whelan）称，2008年时男性对女性的教育和智力状况的兴趣已经上升到第4位了，仅次于彼此的吸引、可靠的品质和稳定的情感。

The result has been a historic reversal of what the economist Elaina Rose calls the "success" penalty for educated women. By 2008, the percentage of college-educated white women ages 55 to 59 who had never been married was down to 9 percent, just 3 points higher than their counterparts without college degrees. And among women 35 to 39, there was no longer any difference in the percentage who were married.

这个结果是对经济学家埃莱纳·罗斯称为受过良好教育女性的“成功”惩罚的历史性颠覆。截止到2008年，55岁至59岁的始终未婚的受过大学教育的白人女性比率已经下降到9%，只比没有大学学位的白人女性高3个点。而且，对于35岁至39岁的女性来说，有没有受过大学教育不再有区别。

African-American women are less likely to marry than white women overall, but educated black women are considerably more likely to marry than their less-educated counterparts. As of 2008, 70 percent of African-American female college graduates had married, compared with 60 percent of high school graduates and just 53 percent of high school dropouts.

总体来说，非裔美国女性结婚的比白人女性少，但与教育水平不太高的黑人女性相比，受到良好教育的黑人女性结婚的可能要大得多。自2008年以来，70%的非裔女大学生结婚了；相比之下，高中毕业的结婚率只有60%；高中辍学的则只有53%。

One reason educated heterosexual women may worry about their marriage prospects today is that overall marriage rates have been slipping since 1980. But they have slipped less for educated women than for anyone else. Furthermore, college-educated women, once they do marry, are much less likely to divorce. As a result, by age 30, and especially at ages 35 and 40, college-educated women are significantly more likely to be married than any other group. And according to calculations by the economist Betsey Stevenson, an educated woman still single at age 40 is much more likely to marry in the next decade than her less educated counterparts.

如今受到良好教育的异性恋女性对婚姻前景担心的一个原因是，1980年以来总体的结婚率一直在下降。但与其它人群相比，受到良好教育的女性结婚率下降较小。而且，一旦受过大学教育的女性结婚了，就不太可能离婚。结果，30岁左右，特别是在35至40岁期间，受大学教育的女性比其它人更有可能结婚。根据经济学家贝特西·史蒂文森的测算，与受到教育不太高的女性相比，40岁仍单身的受到良好教育的女性在下一个10年结婚的可能性会加大。

Even for women who don't marry, it's better to be educated; a 2002 study found that never-married white women with more education than average lived "the longest, healthiest lives of all groups."

甚至对未结婚的女性来说，受教育也是好事；2002年的一份研究指出，在所有人中，受教育水平高于普通人的终身未嫁的白人女性“活得时间最长，生活也最健康”。

ONE of the dire predictions about educated women is true: today, more of them are "marrying down." Almost 30 percent of wives today have more education than their husbands, while less than 20 percent of husbands have more education than their wives, almost the exact reverse of the percentages in 1970.

有个关于受教育女性的可怕预测现在成事实了：如今很多受到良好教育的女性“下嫁”了。现在约有30%的妻子的教育水平比他们的丈夫高，而丈夫学历高于妻子的不足20%，这基本上与1970年的情况完全相反。

But there is not a shred of evidence that such marriages are any less satisfying than marriages in which men have equal or higher education than their wives. Indeed, they have many benefits for women.

但是没有丝毫的证据说明这样的婚姻没有男性学位高于（或等于）妻子的那样令人满意。实际上对女性有很多好处。

In a forthcoming paper from the Council on Contemporary Families, Oriel Sullivan, a researcher at Oxford University, reports that the higher a woman's human capital in relation to her husband — measured by her educational resources and earnings potential — the more help with housework she actually gets from her mate. The degree to which housework is shared is now one of the two most important predictors of a woman's marital satisfaction. And husbands benefit too, since studies show that women feel more sexually attracted to partners who pitch in.

哈佛大学研究员奥瑞儿·沙利文（Oriel Sullivan）在《当代家庭协会》发表的一篇论文称， 与丈夫相比，女性的人力资本（用教育资源和可能的收入来衡量）越多，干家务时伴侣给予她的帮助也就越多。家务被分担的程度是现在两个最重要的估计女性婚姻状况的指标之一。而且，这也有利于男性，因为研究显示女性对教育水平不高的伴侣更有性吸引力。

Speaking of which, educated wives also get better sex, whatever their partner's educational level, according to the sexuality researchers Pepper Schwartz and Virginia Rutter. They are more likely to receive as well as give oral sex, to use a greater variety of sexual positions and to experience orgasm regularly.

提到这一点，性研究员佩珀·施瓦兹（Pepper Schwartz） and弗吉尼亚·瑞特（ Virginia Rutter）认为受到良好教育的妻子的性生活更加和谐，而不论他们伴侣的教育水平如何。他们更愿意口交或被口交，更可能使用多种体位和经常达到性高潮。

Certainly, some guys are still threatened by a woman's achievements. But scaring these types off might be a good thing. The men most likely to feel emotional and physical distress when their wives have a higher status or income tend to be those who are more invested in their identity as breadwinners than as partners and who define success in materialistic ways. Both these traits are associated with lower marital quality. Few women really want to marry a man whose penis rises and falls in tandem with the size of his paycheck or the prestige of his diploma.

当然，有些男人也会受不了女人的成就。但是把这类男人吓跑也许是件好事。当妻子的地位或收入超过自己时，他们的身心很可能会沮丧，而且他们往往认为自己是家庭的支柱而不是伴侣，他们往往用物质的方式定义成功。这两种品质与低质量的婚姻是联系在一起的。钱包鼓、学历高的时候，那话儿就竖起来了，否则就蔫下去了，这样的男人是没有女人真正愿意嫁的。

Yet when the journalist Liza Mundy interviewed young women for her forthcoming book on female breadwinners, she found that most wanted a mate they could "look up to" or "admire" — and didn't think they could admire a man who was less educated than they were. During a talk I recently gave to a women's group in San Francisco, an audience member said, "I want him to respect what I know, but I also want him to know just a little more than me." One of my students once told me, "it's exciting to be a bit in awe of a guy."

但是当她为新书采访一些女性家庭支柱时，记者丽莎·曼迪（Liza Mundy） 发现绝大数人都希望找个可以“ 仰望 ”或“ 羡慕”的对象，不希望他们羡慕的人受到的教育比不上自己。最近在旧金山跟一个女性团体谈话时，一名观众说，“我希望他尊重我知道的东西，而且我还希望他知道的比我多。” 有个学生也曾经告诉我，“对一个人有点敬畏也是比较有趣的。”

For a century, women have binged on romance novels that encouraged them to associate intimidation with infatuation; it's no wonder that this emotional hangover still lingers. Valentine's Day is a perfect time to reject the idea that the ideal man is taller, richer, more knowledgeable, more renowned or more powerful. The most important predictor of marital happiness for a woman is not how much she looks up to her husband but how sensitive he is to her emotional cues and how willing he is to share the housework and child-care. And those traits are often easier to find in a low-key guy than a powerhouse.

爱情小说常让人将崇拜、敬畏当成了喜欢，而一个世纪以来，女性都喜欢读这些小说。这种情感需求还是会遗留在脑际的。理想的男人应该是更高大的、更富有的、更有知识的、更加出名的或者更加强劲的。情人节是抵制这些观点的最佳时机。女人婚姻幸福最重要的一个因素不是她多么仰慕丈夫，而是丈夫对妻子的情感暗示有多敏感，有多愿意分担家务和照看孩子。而且与强人相比，这些品质在不打眼的人身上会更容易被发现。

I am not arguing that women ought to "settle." I am arguing that we can now expect more of a mate than we could when we depended on men for our financial security, social status and sense of accomplishment. But that requires ditching the Lois Lane syndrome, where we ignore the attractions and attention of Clark Kent because we're so eager for the occasional fly-by from Superman.

我并不是说女人应该“凑合”过下去。除了依赖男人获得经济支撑、社会地位和成就感之外，我觉得从男人身上可以获得更多其它东西。但这需要摆脱路易斯·莱恩（Lois Lane）综合症，因为它让我们忽略了克拉克·肯特的魅力和关怀，因为我们太渴望见到身边偶尔飞过的超人。