剩女被剩之謎：職場女人「恨嫁」為哪般？

07-08

Kay Hymowitz notes that this year, 57% of all college grads will be women, which leads her to [w]ponder[/w]. Here』s a question: when the time comes, will these women be willing to marry 「down」? 凱-海默維茨（著名作家）發現，今年57%的大學畢業生為女性。這個結果讓她不禁疑惑：這些受過高等教育的女性到了適婚年齡的時候，到底會不會「下嫁」呢？

It』s not entirely clear to me why Hymowitz asks this question, but I guess I get the [w]gist[/w] of it. So, back when the typical woman had fewer years of college education than the typical man, and women had fewer and worse job opportunities, the typical marriage involved women marrying 「up」 educationally and socioeconomically. As women』s [w]equality[/w] advanced, both altering the economic structure of the household and making it easier to pair off with an opposite-sex peer, it has become more common for like to marry like. And, now, more women than men are graduating college. It stands to reason that some of them are going to have to marry men who don』t graduate college.我不清楚為什麼海默維茨會提出這樣的疑問，但我想推測一下其中的原因。讓我們回到過去女人受教育少、工作機會少的時候去討論這個問題，當時傳統的婚姻觀就是女人要「高攀上」受過良好教育的、有經濟實力的高社會地位男人。隨著女性地位的上升，家庭經濟結構的變化，想找一個門當戶對的異性結婚，比以外要容易一些。現在的大學畢業生中，女性的人數已經超過了男性，自然就引出了這樣的問題：勢必有一些女性不得不「下嫁」給沒有從大學畢業的男性。

Most smart women don』t want to get [w=hitch]hitched[/w] to less smart men because they don』t want a lifetime with someone who doesn』t understand them, who doesn』t 「get」 their interests and [w=enthusiasm]enthusiasms[/w], who thinks they』re 「[w]weird[/w].」大多數女人不願意嫁給不如自己聰明的男人，因為她們不想一輩子和一個不懂自己的人生活在一起。她們希望能和自己的另一半情趣相投，而不是被對方當成是一個「古怪的」女人。

Our grandparents』 marriages were largely about shared production, but [w]contemporary[/w] marriage is largely about shared [w]consumption[/w]. If your IQ is three standard [w=deviation]deviations[/w] above the mean, then chances are so are your best friends』–including your romantic partner』s. We like people who are like us.我們祖父母輩的婚姻主要是共同生產，而現在的婚姻主要是共同消費。如果你的智商比平均值高出了三點，那麼你周圍的朋友，包括你的另一半也有可能都是高智商人群。畢竟，我們喜歡和自己相似的人在一起，即所謂的「人以群分」。

College quality may be a decent [w]proxy[/w] for intelligence, but [w=fella]fellas[/w] who graduate from colleges, or who don』t graduate college at all, can nevertheless signal their mental [w]mettle[/w] by, say, talking. It works.大學的學習也許可以衡量一個人的智力水平，但無論有沒有上過大學，都可以通過談話等方式來展現自己的氣質。這招很管用。