One out of five Harvard students is a husband. Most of the University's 2500 married students must have guidance, housing, and employment for their wives. To meet these needs they turn to Mrs. Myles Baker, the Advisor to Harvard Wives.

In the last four years Mrs. Baker has counselled more than six thousand married or engaged couples. Many of these pairs were distraught when they first visited the Longfellow Hall office. One husband summed up their state of mind: "If we sound confused, it is because we are confused. We don't know how to work out our situation."

It is Mrs. Baker's job to help such couples find their own solutions. Usually she starts by informing the husband that his wife will have to support him. Though this idea comes hard to many men, the fact is that they themselves cannot count on more than ten dollars a week from part-time work. Mrs. Baker points out that few student marriages can be solvent "if the man has any false pride about his wife working full time."

If the husband forgets his pride, his wife can find employment through the office. Half the women take full-time jobs, and 30 percent more work part time. The urgency of this job-seeking is shown by the schedule of one wife. A Smith graduate in her twenties, she does laundry and scrubs floors five days a week, while her two children are in the University's Nursery School; two evenings a week her husband tends the children while she poses for a portrait class.

Frequently college girls come to the office who must choose between marrying or staying in school. They can rarely do both without outside support; last year five percent of Radcliffe undergraduates left school for marital reasons, mostly to get jobs. Mrs. Baker usually advises such girls to finish their schooling, if they can hold out that long.

For many couples Mrs. Baker's biggest task is preserving morale. Women exhausted from fighting to meet expenses or wring housing from the University's agency can turn to her for encouragement.

The office of Advisor opened originally because of the influx of veterans' wives. Now, although the veterans are vanishing, the proportion of married students is almost the same: about 37 percent of the Grad School and six percent of the College. This indicates that the abundance of Harvard wives was not merely a result of the war. It looks now as though Mrs. Baker's office will be busy for a long time.