| Decade | Per cent of men graduates married | Per cent of women graduates married |
|---|---|---|
| 1852-61 | 81 | 87 |
| 1862-71 | 87 | 87 |
| 1872-81 | 90 | 81 |
| 1882-91 | 84 | 55 |
| 1892-01 | 73 | 48 |
C. B. Davenport, looking at the record of his own classmates at Harvard, found10 in 1909 that among the 328 original members there were 287 surviving, of whom nearly a third (31%) had never married.
"Of these (287)," he continues, "26 were in 'Who's Who in America?' We should expect, were success in professional life promoted by bachelorship, to find something over a third of those in Who's Who to be unmarried. Actually all but two, or less than 8%, were married, and one of these has since married. The only still unmarried man was a temporary member of the class and is an artist who has resided for a large part of the time in Europe. There is, therefore, no reason to believe that bachelorship favors professional success."
Particularly pernicious in tending to prevent marriage is the influence of certain professional schools, some of which have come to require a college degree for entrance. In such a case the aspiring physician, for example, can hardly hope to obtain a license to practice until he has reached the age of 27 since 4 years are required in Medical College and 1 year in a hospital. His marriage must in almost every case be postponed until a number of years after that of the young men of his own class who have followed business careers.