loss into utilitarian terms some years ago when I was a graduate student I was at Oxford in England and they had menâs and women's colleges they weren't yet mixed and the women's colleges had rules against overnight male guests by the nineteen seventies these rules were rarely enforced and easily violated, or so I was told, by the late nineteen seventies when I was there, pressure grew to relax these rules and it became the subject of debate among the faculty at St. Anne's College which was one of these all women colleges the older women on the faculty we're traditionalists they were opposed to change on conventional moral grounds but times had changed and they were embarrassed to give the true grounds of their objection and so the translated their arguments into utilitarian terms if men stay overnight, they argued, the costs to the college will increase. how you might wonder well they'll want to take baths, and that will use up hot water they said furthermore they argued we'll have to replace the mattresses more often the reformers met these arguments by adopting the following compromise each woman could have a maximum of three overnight male guest each week they didn't say whether it had to be the same one, or three different provided and this is the compromise provided the guest paid fifty pence to defray the cost to the college the next day the national headline in the national newspaper read St. Anne's girls, fifty pence a night