WHAT ABOUT YOUR DATES AGE?

The same census report indicates that the more education a person has, the better his prospects for future earnings. Of course, there are some exceptional boys who drop out and still do well, but by and large there is a close connection between schooling and level of income.

Nowadays almost any boy may continue on in school if he wants to badly enough. Dropping out of school usually indicates a lack of ambition. Or it reveals that a fellow takes a dim view of himself and his potentialities. Sometimes the pressure of his home may make a boy drop out. More boys from poor homes stop school than do middle- or upper-class fellows. They get jobs to help out at home—and then marry soon afterward. Therefore, one of the factors that enters into dating a “drop-out” is not only the possible difference in age,but sometimes even more important, the difference in social expectations and status and in the style of life that each represents. Such differences need not be but can be serious in both dating and in marriage.

Of course, an out-of-school man may already have completed his education, be vocationally established, and ready to settle down in a home of his own. In such a case, a girl would be dating and eventually marrying a man of her own social and economic level.