Families scrimped and saved for years to build a dowry so that their daughter might marry well.

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"Orphans usually can't get good jobs and can't marry well, " says Park Young Sook, who recently launched the country's first foster-parent association.

CNN: CHILDREN OF THE CRISIS

At Christie's the sale is heavy on rocks, most of them previously owned by wealthy, glamorous American women who knew how to marry well.

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After all, many women of high net worth have established themselves in business or professional partnerships, often well before they marry.

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Yet it sometimes seems that Asian women who want to get on in politics would be well advised simply to marry a man with the same ambition.

ECONOMIST: Only widows and orphans?

Not only are the well-off and well-educated far more likely to marry and stay married than poorer folk, they tend to marry each other.

ECONOMIST: American inequality is a tale of two countries

The fact that people are saying, well, perfectly relaxed, over half the respondents are happy to marry or have a relationship with somebody from a different race, very, very positive.

BBC: Ask Gurbux Singh

Children born to stable, married parents are more likely to graduate from high school and from college, well-equipped to thrive in a knowledge economy and, in turn, more likely to marry and start their own families on a stable footing.

WSJ: The New Unmarried Moms