Let me repeat that statistically, hypergamy is not supported. Just now, looking for a nice table (which I didn’t find but I can’t spend more time looking right now) I stumbled onto a paper offering that hypogamous and egalitarian relationships have lower divorce rates.
I think I mean that in a society that values cognitive strength and will pay whomever for it, women do not need to clean up after another adult if they don’t wish to. Women don’t have to hope they get lucky in marrying a good guy. Women can make choices, and as men have not yet changed to the degree that women have, there are issues for them. You are looking for women or the gov’t to solve these, but it’s going to come down to a sea change in male behavior, I suspect.
Many men seem to be looking for a sexy mom - someone who takes care of them and who also somehow wants to blow them. Most women find that tiresome. Know who hates nagging more than men do? Women.
So then we get to trust and the fair ‘n’ square of SAHM, where he provides financially and she does in fact take care of things at home. This is a fine system for women who feel high levels of trust for their partner, but for those who don’t, the potential for negative outcomes is high. Women are, as a generalization, more risk averse than men. So we find more women opting out of an impossible choice - work full time AND carry the bulk of home responsibility, or stay home and atrophy, earning-potential-wise.
This is what the research tells us and this is confirmed for me by what I see in my therapy office. I also see male difficulty in relationships, of course.
I’m not sure why you’d imagine these are silly feelings, based on brainwashing. Would you trust another adult to care for you forever, knowing that he pursued you for your 21-year-old ass, and let yourself get stuck as a low wage earner with no viable work experience as you age? Would you want to be treated with impatience or derision and have no way to successfully assert yourself? Would you be okay crying helpless tears over - not even abuse, but careless, disrespectful treatment?
Women do not currently find the risk-benefit ratio favorable to marriage and children at the levels they once did. That’s not silly.