I agree with the protect part, but why provide? I mean, it's not like women have to go out and kill mastadons. Provisioning is not a male centered activity anymore. Since most women are not traditional anymore why should men be?
Ideally you’d attract & maintain the interest of a traditional woman, and then marry her if for nothing else but providing the statistically best environment to raise kids in, then you’d want to
at least have the means to provide for both her and your children indefinitely if tough times necessitate it.
If she’s a good lover, partner, and the mother of your kids, why wouldn’t you provide for her? Why would a woman, assuming she’s of quality, settle for a man who operates out of fear and whose afraid of providing for his family because he’s scared to lose some money?
That being said, there’s always an inherent risk in marriage. I understand the apprehension about it, especially given that the women worthy of marriage are few and far between... and even then the system is rigged in the woman’s favour in most cases.
This is why due diligence before such a commitment is essential. Most failed marriages I’ve observed the man admits to compromising by ignoring or minimizing red flags in the woman.
Will proper screening avoid a train wreck of a divorce? Obviously not, but nothing worth having is easily attained and completely risk free at that. Not like you take your money with you when you die anyway.