Another of Scott's Homes on the Web

The presence or absence of a particular message in a fictional work doesn't make it better or worse than any other. The "marriage is the reward at the end of the story" message is the classic definition of a "comedy"--in the Greek sense of "not a tragedy," not the modern sense of "funny." Male or female, marriage was the reward and the story was over afterwards. Doc Smith, from what I've read of him (Lensman series only), moved the marriage forward, which is different, but kept it as the reward, which is the same. It's not a good thing or a bad thing: it's just a thing. Being able to recognize what the thing is and whether it's there is useful, in my opinion, but not as an indicator of quality.