There's lots of good stuff in this thread.
I agree completely with the ideas presented by
@guru1000 and
@TheProspect and others in this thread.
Marriage is doing best on the higher end of the marketplace where the quality of people is inherently better.
There are two advantages marriage has that have been alluded to but not fully described yet.
The first and most important is that in a good marriage the spouses function in close partnership throughout their lives. Roles and responsibilities are different but complimentary, child rearing, family stability and sexual satisfaction are important elements, but intimacy, friendship, companionship and real love (entirely sacrificial and giving in nature) develop and deepen over time.
Women who have been raised to value these things understand that commitment is a precursor to development of real love. These are women who hold out for the correct environment (the marriage construct) because they know that framework is what fosters real love, deep intimacy and lifelong commitment & partnership. And they will hold out for a man who also "gets it."
The second advantage is that for a man to fulfill his life's ambitions he functions best when entirely focused. Dating & sorting through myriad women is an expensive & time consuming process. It's distracting. You can make unlimited money but you cannot create more time. So a man who finds a good wife increases his efficiency in life and also reaps the ability to focus more on his own endeavors & life purpose because the woman/partner/mate aspect of his life is settled and stable.
That can be an enormous comfort and advantage.
And it remains encumbent on both spouses not to take each other for granted and to continue to strive to be their best selves.
It won't work if either one gets lazy or complacent.
Too much bandwidth is spent here on the negative aspects of marriage and that is certainly understandable & to be expected here. There ARE positive aspects as well and I think it's a good thing to discuss them & understand them.
All around us good unions do exist. So it's obviously possible to achieve. You guys understand more than the average man, in fact in some ways the red pill, for all the truth it gives, it also jades men in some cases to a degree such that all is dark, all is foul, all is not to be trusted. And that gentlemen in and of itself is just as much a lie as the Disney belief set is a lie.
Cheers