I totally agree that the gender dynamic you described has existed for a long time. It’s not a simple “women are born to take and men are born to give” thing — it’s conditional and has deep roots in our patriarchal society. Girls have been taught by parents for centuries that the best way to live a good life is to marry a rich husband and men have been taught to provide and find young attractive women for reproductive purposes. Gender pay gap is most definitely not helping with this problem, either. Men have been taught that if they become rich, they can have any girls they want (yes, in that sense, they are dictated by their sexual desires). Women, on the other hand, have been taught that education and career success is not as important as finding a man who provides. All I’m saying is, this gender dynamic has existed for way too long because of our patriarchal society and the flawed parenting that resulted from it. I certainly can’t speak for other women just as you cannot speak for other men. For me, at least, if I were to enter into a marriage with a man, I do not expect him to provide for me because I’m fully capable of providing for myself. I also do not expect to receive half of what he owns if things go south and we unfortunately had to end the marriage. I think our divorce system is highly flawed — what entitles one spouse to take half of what the other spouse make? It makes no sense.

The fact (or myth) that high-income women are less likely to marry is probably because women are 1) treasuring their new-found independence as it was not possible at all decades ago; 2) a lot of men are still intimidated by or feel “less of a man” to women who earn more than they do. They’d rather find someone who fits into the traditional gender norm (who earn less and do most of the house work) to maintain their egos.

We have a lot of work to do to make this change. It starts with changing the way we parent our girls and boys. Also society and politics needs to catch up as well — it all takes time but I hope you’ll find my opinion useful.