Ads reveal companionship has increasingly been a motivation but some may still opt for marriage as a rare route to wealth
Humans have been getting married for a long time, but at least some of their motivations for doing so have changed over time.
The romantics among you will take heart from new research that analyses changing “mate preferences” over the 20th century. It does so by examining something I didn’t even know existed: marriage ads. More than 300,000 of them appeared in the bestselling monthly magazine in France (Le Chasseur Français) between 1928 and 1994 and by examining words used in the ads the research looks for changes in what people want in a partner. Or at least say they want.