Gold digger? Thot? I don't think so. She said husband "candidate", not boyfriend, and the world is extremely harsh so a strong husband is probably important. And to that extent (the world being as harsh as it is), it's reasonable to conclude she and most women in that world save themselves for marriage because of how important it is to attract a strong husband, and a strong husband will have options and not want to marry a loose woman.
Also, marriage for love isn't as prevalent in history as most people think. Sure, it happened often enough, but life before the industrial revolution life was depressingly difficult and made it so love often developed after the marriage as the couple tackled life together.
Fiddler on the Roof (a fantastic movie that got TV Guide's difficult to obtain 4 star rating—I kid you not, seeing a 4 star rating is almost as rare as a hen's tooth) is kind of an example of what that was like in the example of the father and mother characters.