Looking at this from another perspective:<p>As a modern woman who makes good money, I'd be comfortable in theory with marrying a man who makes far less than I do.<p>The problem with that in practice is gender roles in marriage. It's still the norm for women to be responsible for the lion's share of cooking, cleaning, and childrearing. Even in the marriages with the most "woke" husbands I see among my friends, the wife almost always ends up both doing more and spending more mental energy on the home.<p>That means that for men, marriage lightens the burden of (for lack of a better term) managing life, leaving more time and energy for career. For women it's the opposite. This is the primary reason IMO why marriage is a good deal for both parties if the breadwinner makes more than the homemaker. It's just that men who are willing to be the homemaker are vanishingly rare. And if both are breadwinners, almost invariably the homemaking burden falls more heavily on the wife.<p>That means that from a practical (as opposed to a romantic) perspective, marrying a man who makes significantly less than me is liable to be an enormous burden. Why would I want to support a man both economically and practically?<p>Yes, there are some men out there who would make the fair trade and do more of the homemaking if I were the primary breadwinner. There are also a bunch who say they'd be willing to do it, but aren't aware of what that fully entails and aren't willing to put in the emotional investment. (See [1] and [2]). There are also more of those men in younger generations in general; and the ones who exist in my generation are likely to be already married - and happily so. So I'll stay single - and happily so.<p>The solution, in my opinion, would be to continue to erase traditional gender roles. If most of the men out there were ready to take on the homemaker role enthusiastically, I would be far more willing to consider them as partners even if they make a fraction of what I do.