A substantial population of men are also deeply concerned that a legal marriage will end in a costly, lopsided, and devastating divorce. It is no secret that women have the advantage in such proceedings.
For the breadwinner the outcome isn't very gendered, except for the conditions of custody of any children.
And although not very gendered, it is a shitty contract where the worst clauses have extremely high rates of occurring. Even when isolating to later aged upper middle class economic equals, a 10% rate of triggering the worst clauses in a financial contract is extremely bad.
You simply can't decouple the financial aspects of a financial contract just because how someone might have been conditioned to romanticize an overarching concept.
> For the breadwinner the outcome isn't very gendered
This is a distinction without a difference. Even today, with women's educational attainment and workforce compensation skyrocketing, they still strongly marry "up". In the aggregate, this leaves the situation arguably even worse than before:
1. More men are pushed out of the marriage market.
2. Men who are in the marriage market still face financial devastation when the wife decides it's time to "find herself" in a no-fault divorce state (e.g. nearly all of them).
> Even today, with women's educational attainment and workforce compensation skyrocketing, they still strongly marry "up".
Yes, while the delta between spousal earnings is much smaller which also leads to a third observation:
3. Economic equals that are stable are marrying each other for the first time/generation, which increases inequality for the people (mostly for the other remaining women) that have nobody to marry up to.
The women aren't interested in being in an unstable situation and are also not interested in taking care of a man, both genders in this binary situation are opting to avoid marriage (or merely consider it unattainable) if there is no stability. And of course there is my observation that it's also a bad contract.
And the power dynamic this creates puts men in a state of walking on eggshells to unrealistic expectations from a partner who can take them to the cleaners for any reason, which is highly destructive to relationships, and a massive reason why so many are opting out of relationships and spend their life online
