Married women can't join sororities???

[AGDee]

It will really vary by campus. On a more non-traditional campus, it will probably be more accepted but there are some possible inherent barriers:
1) In many groups, you have the option of the alumna status when you get married as a collegian (some may require it), so there could be an issue with retention of membership. Collegiate chapters are limited in how many women that they can take, so they are going to be more likely to take women who are more likely to stay active in the chapter for 4 years. A married woman could choose to go alumna at any time. This is also why sophomores and juniors at some schools have fewer options for sorority membership...chapters are looking for women who can contribute for 4 years to provide stability and consistency in a chapter.
2) If there is a house, members are expected to live in the house at some point during their sorority membership. Obviously, a married woman isn't going to live in a sorority house, so she becomes a less desirable choice if there are problems with keeping a house filled.
3) Concerns about priorities/time committments. While all sororities put family, school and work (to a degree) above the sorority, most members are college students who have few family committments because they are living away at school, a member who is married is more likely to have family committments that will take away from the time and energy that she can put into the chapter.
4) A married woman is probably less likely to engage in the social aspect of the sorority (like Fraternity mixers). If a chapter had a large number of married women, this could be a hindrance in which fraternities would have mixers with them because the number of women attending such functions would decrease.


On a more urban commuter campus (like Wayne State University in Detroit) where a lot of the students are non-traditoinal, it's less of an issue, but those are some of the reasons that chapters would be hesitant. I'm sure there have been married members who had very supportive husbands and who contributed strongly to a chapter, just as there have been members with a child who handled it all, it's just more rare and probably more of a challenge for those members.