29 APRIL 1960, Page 16

The female teachers going off the deep end about the

'degrading' emphasis on marriage are probably mistaken: many of the mothers of their pupils may have been married, after all. And they sound curiously dated; it was in the Thirties that you had to be either domesticated or a worker: nowadays everyone takes it for granted you .do both. And their complaints about how badly the country needs the trained services of women strike hollowly on the ear of any who have ever tried to offer the country the trained services of women. But for all .that the teachers are dead right about the importance of stressing work and careers for women. Only work can prove a reasonable corrective to obsessive date and man consciousness. And they might be encouraged to learn that the 'people on Honey have been startled by the serious interest they have found teenagers do take in their jobs. It must be a long time since anyone got married so that they would not have to work but work has not lost any of its force as a corrective to being swept to the altar by popular pressure.

It is no good complaining about marriage-- and no good complaining about the bright shirts and loud music. But if the teachers can put a brake on the teenage rush for' the altar, more power to their elbows.