the problem. They had nannies, and they could afford them. They had already
outsourced all their domestic obligations and necessities. They understood, as
well—and perfectly well—that it was the market that defined success, not the
men they worked with. If you are earning $650 an hour in Toronto as a top
lawyer, and your client in Japan phones you at 4 a.m. on a Sunday, you
answer. Now. You answer, now, even if you have just gone back to sleep
after feeding the baby. You answer because some hyper-ambitious legal
associate in New York would be happy to answer, if you don’t—and that’s
why the market defines the work.
The increasingly short supply of university-educated men poses a problem
of increasing severity for women who want to marry, as well as date. First,
women have a strong proclivity to marry across or up the economic
dominance hierarchy. They prefer a partner of equal or greater status. This
holds true cross-culturally.^184 The same does not hold, by the way, for men,
who are perfectly willing to marry across or down (as the Pew data indicate),
although they show a preference for somewhat younger mates. The recent
trend towards the hollowing-out of the middle class has also been increasing
as resource-rich women tend more and more^185 to partner with resource-rich
men. Because of this, and because of the decline in high-paying
manufacturing jobs for men (one of six men of employable age is currently
without work in the US), marriage is now something increasingly reserved
for the rich. I can’t help finding that amusing, in a blackly ironic manner. The
oppressive patriarchal institution of marriage has now become a luxury. Why
would the rich tyrannize themselves?
Why do women want an employed partner and, preferably, one of higher
status? In no small part, it’s because women become more vulnerable when
they have children. They need someone competent to support mother and
child when that becomes necessary. It’s a perfectly rational compensatory act,
although it may also have a biological basis. Why would a woman who
decides to take responsibility for one or more infants want an adult to look
after as well? So, the unemployed working man is an undesirable specimen—
and single motherhood an undesirable alternative. Children in father-absent
homes are four times as likely to be poor. That means their mothers are poor
too. Fatherless children are at much greater risk for drug and alcohol abuse.
Children living with married biological parents are less anxious, depressed