In The Help, why is it important to Skeeter's mother that she marry early?

The Help, written by Kathryn Stockett, deals with many themes that can feel quite foreign to those of us who have grown up in the past thirty years or so. The book is set in the 1960s, when the Civil Rights Movement was in full swing. While racial equality and de-segregation play the major part of the book, one can also read into the subtext of second-wave feminism. 

Skeeter Phelan, one of the main characters,...

The Help, written by Kathryn Stockett, deals with many themes that can feel quite foreign to those of us who have grown up in the past thirty years or so. The book is set in the 1960s, when the Civil Rights Movement was in full swing. While racial equality and de-segregation play the major part of the book, one can also read into the subtext of second-wave feminism. 

Skeeter Phelan, one of the main characters, is a young woman who comes from a well-off family. She lives in Jackson, Mississippi and attended college at the University of Mississippi. The American South has always valued tradition, even to the point of being considered "old fashioned." During the 1960's, higher  numbers of women in the United States were choosing to attend college and/or become part of the working world. The traditional option, which many women chose, was to marry and start a family as soon as she was of age. Skeeter feels a little out of place because all of her friends were married and started having children while she choose to go to college. What's more, as a high-society young woman, there wasn't really a need for Skeeter to be working. She could have easily relied on her family's wealth and married into an equally wealthy family. 

Skeeter had conflict with her mother over whether or not she should marry. Her mother worried that Skeeter might miss her chance to start a family if she did not marry soon. Her mother's worries were not just based in the fact that the number of young, eligible women would be pushing Skeeter out of "the market," but also in the fact that she thought Skeeter to not be very pretty. Her mother constantly was bringing home contraptions to try and straighten Skeeter's curly hair, thinking it detracted from her appearance. The societal pressures that Skeeter's appearance and age might make her less eligible for marriage naturally made her mother fear for her daughter and the possibility of the family being carried on.

To us, it might seem strange or old-fashioned to have such pressures on young women to marry as soon as possible. However, the belief that a woman's role in life was as wife and mother persists today, if not as firmly or with as many limitations as in the 1960's.