[DougN7]

I really hate this quote: “Why buy the cow when the milk is free?”. Having said that, sex is a huge bonding element for those who won’t have sex outside of marriage. Everyone else misses out on that element, and are paying for it.

[snapplebobapple]

Yah, that quote is problematic because it's primarily reflecting the successful man's position when the problem is more broad. Unless you really screw up your choice and marry someone you fundamentally can't get along with once the smoldering sex burns down to embers and you are stuck coasting on talking to each other, the occasional bang, and potentially shared commitments to raising children, marriage almost certainly far outperforms consumerist sex without consequences across any individual's life cycle for the majority of individuals (at least from what I can see from my personal experience and the experience of the people in my peer group). I know so many young women that had a blast through their early 30's and now sound exactly like the writer of this article and I know a lot of men who are still struggling because they were average or slightly less than average levels of successful professionally as well as a minority of men who had it rough in their 20's but are having a blast in the 30's and 40's because they stayed single and did well professionally and now basically have their pick of the dating apps. I am an atheist but I can see the superiority of the outcome for most people of the religious monogamy with social consequences setup for most people from my dataset.