| Yes hyper individuality is part of it. The other part of it is gender equality. For most of human civilization genders were not equal so both sexes evolved traits that are also unequal. The most glaring trait responsible for lack of marriage is female hypergamy. Previously women being of generally unequal/lower status then men and overall a smaller pool of candidates (no online dating) would be forced to be more egalitarian in mate selection. It was easy for a woman to find a man who got paid more than them because this was most men. Now that women are doing better and having relatively more equal pay with men hypergamy is rearing it's head in a more pronounced fashion. Female selection preferences are much more strict because if women are getting paid equally with men then they must find men that are paid more as well and this is obviously a much smaller pool than when women had no jobs. This along with exposure to the top men via online dating, women can now match with the top men in the entire city rather then the top men in her social circle. And this is exactly what you see in the online dating statistics. The top 20% of men match with the top 80% of women and the bottom 20% of women match with the bottom 80% of men. I mean as progressive as you want to be there's no denying what I'm saying here as this data is just glaring. It spits in the face of people who say otherwise as it's measuring current dating behavior. Individualism is part of the story because it does push for more power for women overall. But it is in the end this individualism among women that is changing the game in the US. But not just the US, other countries as well. So what's going on is you have a few men who have an abundance of choice. They're never going to settle because when men have an abundance of choice they switch their mating strategy from monogamy to harlem style polygamy. And then the rest of the men have a much harder time finding anyone at all. This is actually more beneficial to women from certain theoretical perspectives. In anthropology there's a saying that monogamy benefits men while polygamy benefits women and general female behavior shows it. Basically for the best genes and resources, women generally prefer to "share" a top alpha man with other women over being in an exclusive monogamous relationship with a beta male. Men on the other hand don't accept this strategy because they are providers of resources. If a woman sleeps with another man then the partner may end up raising and spending resources on another mans child. Thus all men have intense instincts to basically end an entire relationship once a woman has a single sexual affair. You can actually see how this behavior plays out in certain countries like Japan where women are totally ok with their husbands fucking prostitutes. As long as that man "loves" them and is providing resources for them, fucking a prostitute without love is totally ok for japanese women. Source: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/i9qS5vDXLSI Basically we live in an era of changing social norms and it's accelerating natural selection. The majority of men born today will not pass on their genes. Traits of alpha males including height, confidence will be expressed to a greater extent in future generations and it's possible for the trend to continue roughly culling the bottom 80% of men out of the evolutionary process. Women are slowly getting the upper hand in terms of natural selection, and for men to get the upper hand usually they have to reintroduce monogamy back into the society as this guarantees a mate for every man. Monogamy is the more beneficial strategy to men overall because very few men can actually benefit from polygamy just by the nature of the way numbers work. Monogamous restrictions are pervasive enough throughout human civilization that some women have even evolved monogamous instincts via sexual selection as men actually actively seek these traits out in women. This is basically what's going on from the most scientific point of view. It's not politically correct so a lot of people vehemently disagree. Of course everything I say here is speaking to a general truth. There are plenty of exceptions but those exceptions do not negate the existence of the general truth. |
Well-paid women are much more likely to date men who make less than them. What matters today is that the household is happy and overall has enough financial stability between both earners combined.
> switch their mating strategy from monogamy to harlem style polygamy. And then the rest of the men have a much harder time finding anyone at all.
*harem, not Harlem. Also "harem-style" polygamy is rare in the USA, the most common form by far is "kitchen-table polygamy". In this version, it's actually easier for arbitrary random men to find mates because women in stable poly relationships happily have sex with a wide variety of men "on the side", and can carve out space and time to give those men chances to earn a strong relationship with those women.
> Thus all men have intense instincts to basically end an entire relationship once a woman has a single sexual affair.
Anywhere "affair" is a thing, anyone has intense instincts to end the relationship, because of a catastrophic breakdown of trust. In the vast majority of poly relationships in the USA, women having sex with other men isn't an "affair" and doesn't trigger this type of reaction.