War Brides

U.S. girls, never really convinced by live-alone-and-like-it books, seemed to have decided that a soldier-husband for a few days was better than no husband at all. An alltime high was set this year in Lent weddings, which usually show a drop.

That war brings weddings people remembered from 1918. Never before, though, has it brought so many. A million and a half couples were married in 1941, a 15% increase over the previous 1940 high. A staggering 10%-plus of the 1941 weddings were performed in December after Pearl Harbor, running June's 11.5% a close second. In at least 20 cities, including New York, Jacksonville, Kansas City, San Antonio, Seattle, San Diego, December marriages actually ran ahead of June's.

It is expected that at least a third of 1942's brides will be soldiers' girls. Other source of the boom is high-paying, steady employment in industrial centers. Defense-job weddings showed the greatest increase in Cincinnati (51%), Baltimore, San Diego (47%), Dayton (42%), Bridgeport (21%), Youngstown and Akron (17%), Detroit (12%).

Merchants were as happy as the newlyweds. Most important wedding item is the ring, and U.S. jewelers, who get 25% of their annual $525,000,000 business directly from weddings, have been having a heyday. Wholesale wedding ring sales alone were up some 300% for the first three months of the year. Lingerie and wedding-gown makers call the past and present seasons the "most hectic" they have ever known. Formal bridal gown sales, up 250% last year, continue to equal 1941 records. Lingerie merchants, who usually save black lace garments for Christmas sale to men for women, found themselves sold out of their "get-your-man-underwear" last summer--prospective brides bought it for themselves.

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