[NotableAlamode]

Yes they do.

   I take you, ..., to be my husband and I promise before God and all who are present here to be your loving and faithful wife, as long as our lives shall last. I will serve you with tenderness and respect, and  ...

In other words, where the love stops, the tenderness, where she is unfaithful, she has broken the 'contract'. In that case there is no reason for the other side to uphold his part. No reason other than the near certainty that he will loose his house, his money and his children, ...

[bayesianhorse]

Actually, cheating is not really breaking the contract. The unconditional promise includes "bad times". It's not really "his house" and "his money" anyway, because without a marriage contract, these where already partly hers in any case.

It's a sexist standpoint to assume that all the wealth belongs to the husband, or that he earned it alone, even when the wife never got a paycheck.

[NotableAlamode]

Adultery is a reason for divorve. The "bad times" refers to calamities beyond the partner's control like illness, accidents. The marriage contract is only valid as long as both parties stick to it. Adultery is a voluntary choice and automatically invalidates the (conventinal) marriage contract.

Nobody says that house etc should automatically go to the husband. It should go to those who put the work in to build/buy the property. There are cases, alas rare as of 2015, where this is the wife. In this case, the house should go to the wife. However, as you know well, in the vast majority of cases, this is the husband. Staying at home is not really work. So de facto the contemporary practise of US divorce courts massively violates husbands' rights. As simple fix would be to institute (1) no fault = no alimony, and (2) shared 50/50 custody as norm. Anything else is sexism and cannot legitimately be defended.