[shard]

That depend on whether he interacts with his wife only for sex. There are obviously many other tasks a wife can do, which could require hiring the prostitute for basically all waking hours, and that's not even getting into the misalignment of interests with a freelancer versus having a partner. I think the proper comparison for rent-versus-buy should be a girlfriend versus a wife.

[chickenpotpie]

Ok, let's end this comment train about measuring the value of women by what they can do for their significant other right now.

[rootusrootus]

A slightly more polite way of putting that would be that sex with your spouse is incidental, the reason for the relationship, is the relationship. A prostitute can't provide that.

[shard]

I think it goes beyond the relationship, as a marriage is a commingling of finances and legal rights. A marriage is a common way to achieve pooling of resources and division of labor, with a long-term outlook for the benefit of all parties. Not the most romantic way of looking at it, but this must be taken into account as unaligned goals for the above are the most common reasons that marriages fail.