ABSTRACT
The marriage rates of professional women have been notoriously low. All have to struggle to find ways to reconcile their several functions. But for women at the highest levels, in the technical, scientific, and professional occupations, there are unique and peculiar additional problems. Actually the early-interrupted pattern is probably the worst possible in terms of professional development. Havelock Ellis in his Study of British Genius noted that either very early marriage or fairly late marriage, or no marriage at all, was characteristic of achieving women. Women may lose their momentum also. Studies of the achievement motivation of women after graduation from college give equivocal results. The late-interrupted patterns appeal to young women who are not in any hurry to undertake motherhood at an early age although, like the young women opting for the early-interrupted pattern, they might want the companionship of marriage at a fairly early age.
