On Marrying the Wrong Person
Here&#x27;s an uncomfortable thought: an effective 1-to-1 mapping between men and women probably doesn&#x27;t exist.<p>The fact of the matter is that women are primarily interested in a top smaller percentage of high value men (this is called hypergamy). This smaller group of desirable men would most like to have multiple mates (this is called polygamy). Marriage, and the accompanying culture and customs, &#x27;corrects&#x27; this by trying to create a 1-to-1 mapping. Both extreme strategies described are traditionally shamed and discouraged.<p>Why? Because marriage (monogamous long-term bonding) is good for society. It incentivizes the largest amount of people to be productive, and reduces civil unrest by distributing sexual access to women across as many men as possible. For more on sex and society, check out J.D. Unwin: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;J._D._Unwin" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;J._D._Unwin</a><p>Now, how this relates to the OP. The fact of the matter is that people become unhappy in a relationship of any kind when they think they are getting the short end of the stick, and could be doing better. They&#x27;ll rationalize it six ways to Sunday, &quot;my partner doesn&#x27;t understand me&quot;, &quot;my partner smothers me&quot;, &quot;they don&#x27;t do enough chores&quot;, &quot;we don&#x27;t understand ourselves&quot;, whatever, but at the end of the day they think they ought to have a better mate, and are fed up with their current one!<p>This is especially true of women, who, by pure numerical inevitability, largely marry below what they would prefer. We know that women initiate most divorces too, at ~70% (fun fact: among college-eduated couples, that number rises to 90%). A smaller amount of men end up locked to one person too, when they know in another world they could have more mates. Such are the sacrifices for the monogamous society (often referred to as patriarchal, because women are more sexually restricted).<p>So in conclusion, what bothers me about articles like this, who delve deep into rationalizations instead of simple mate value and attractiveness, is the implication of a 1-to-1 mapping between men and women. Is there a right person to marry, for most people? Probably not.