NURSES AND MARRIAGE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 91, 10 January 1918, Page 2

NURSES AND MARRIAGE

ROMANTIC NOTIONS EXPLODED.

Whenever a nurse and her patient marry the newspapers seize upon the ncideiit as a romance, and the reading ■ jublie, forgetting that it is tho un-. usual that is chronicled, have come to regard matrimony as the natural goal of tho trained niirso. As a matter of tact, tho reverse is true, according to a recent investigation made by '"Tlio Journal of Heredity," which finds that less than half of tho graduates of the best training-schools marry. The lowest percentage is reported from llio training-school of tho Washington Uiiiversitj as 21, whilst the highest, 52, is recorded at tho school connected with St. Luke's Hospital, in New York. The writer thus sums up:— No umount of optimism can bring one to conclude- that the marriage-rato of trained nurses—or at least of the graduates of the best .training-schools —is even reasonably* high. On the whole, tho education of a nurso fits her admirably fur home-making and mothercraft. It might lie supposed that such women would bo in great demand as wives. ■ The fact that they marry to such a small extent may indicate : (a) That men do not use good judgment in selecting wives (this criticism has been heard more than onco from the graduates of women's colleges), or that there is something in a' nurse's education to which men object. (b) That tho nurses prefer to remnin single. Many of them doubtless ar« set on a career, but evidently not all, for of the living, unmarried graduates of Bollcviie who have left school, but whoso whereabouts are known 16 per cent, are not following their profession, but havo apparently .given it up, mid arc living at home. It is doubtless -true that nurses, having careerß offering abundant employment and good pay, can bo and are much more exacting in their requirements of a suitor than are girls who. have no future in sight except matrimony. Their celibacy cannot be very largely due to lack of opportunities to meet men, for their opportunities in this respect are notably good. Any attempt to analyse the causes of this low marriage-rato must bo futile until some data aro available; for the factors involved aro doubtless mostly complex psychological Influences. But there is one simpler causo that may be. suspected—ago. Ten or fifteen years ago the ago of admission to good train-ing-schools was from twenty-one 1o twentv-fivo yenrs. Tho average ago

of girls at graduation was certainly not less than twenty-five. The nurses' who graduated from the. four large schools in classes prior to 1902 woiv, •therefore, well towards the end of the most marriageable period in a' woman's Mfo at the timo of their graduation. Lately the ago standards of training-school's have been steadily reduced, twenty perhaps being all average minimum, although many schools will now admit pupils at the age of nineteen. .The average age of graduates is therefore now about twentythree, according to those who are. in a. position to form an intelligent opinion. This decrease of age alone should tend to increase, the marriage-rate of the moro recent graduates as compared with those a decade or two ago. .

Mrs. G. W. Russell has gone for a holiday visit to Auckland and Kotorua.

The following subscriptions for the five weeks ending January 8, 1918, are ncknuv> lodged by tho kj.l'.C.A.—Mctsrs. l<. lUdlcy and Sons, fil Gs. ; Messrs. .11. J. G. Rwley, C. H. Seville, K. W. Mills and Co., Kirkcaldie and Stains, Ltd , Huddart, Parker and Co., Ltd., and Miss Rowley, £1 Is. each; Mrs. I. Tremaine, £1; Miss Coates, 10s.; Mesbrs. J. 6. H. Scales, Lt;l, 7s. 6d.; Mrs. Christie, 65.; Mrs. J. M'Guirc, Messrs. J. Murphy and Son, and "Friend," 2s. 6d. each;. Mr. B, Craig, Is. Total, £10 'Is.