As a member of the same Princeton class as Susan Patton and having read her entire letter online (Campus Notebook, April 24), I want to make clear that her attitude is not representative of women who attended Princeton in the ’70s. We were born in the ’50s, but we were not living in the ’50s when we were at Princeton. College is an excellent place for both men and women to meet a person with whom they share interests and values and with whom they may want to share their life. College is therefore an excellent place for both men and women to meet a spouse, as well as a place to make other lifelong friendships. But the ideas that women can marry only men in the same class or an older class, or that hunting for a husband is the road to a good marriage, are nonsense.
Unlike Ms. Patton, I’m married to a fellow Princetonian, and we’re still happily together after more than 35 years. However, in the worldview expressed in her letter, we wouldn’t exist — we didn’t meet until my senior year, and he is younger and from a later class than me (’78).