What do all these ‘economically unattractive men’ tell us about marriage? | Arwa Mahdawi
Rush Limbaugh is wrong to blame feminists for the lack of ‘high-earning husbands’, but some women do have odd ideas about wedlock
I hope you feminists are happy! You’ve finally gone and done it. You’ve throttled the supply of high-earning husbands, and now there are severe mismatches in the marriage market. Yes, I regret to report that a study in the Journal of Marriage and Family (there truly is a journal for everything) has found that unmarried American women “face overall shortages of economically attractive partners”. Women are looking for husbands with an income 58% higher than those of the available men.
Hang on, I thought marriage was about love, not combined incomes? Sure, says Daniel Lichter, a Cornell professor and the study’s lead author, “but it also is fundamentally an economic transaction”. And, Lichter says, “Many young men today have little to bring to the marriage bargain, especially as young women’s educational levels …now exceed their male suitors.”