I think that's a good question. And it's a question that we SHOULD ask ourselves AND be honest with ourselves.
And I've asked a similar question on other forums: Why do you want a woman? The answers ranged anywhere from "To get steady unpaid for sex" or "To have someone to cook and clean the house" to "To share the joys and trials of life with a partner" or "To raise a family with a partner because I believe that having two parents is the best model to raising healthy well-adjusted children."
As for the value and purpose of marriage, like I point out in the paragraph above, SOME people (men) might even admit those reasons to themselves (at least), and see 'value and purpose' in them. But are those valid reasons for wanting a wife?
You listed three main reasons guys say they want a wife.
1. Regular sex
Marriage is literally the most expensive, risky, and paperwork-heavy way on planet Earth to get sex. Scientists still haven’t found conclusive proof that sex continues to exist after the wedding night (half-joking, but only half).
2. Cooking & cleaning
Bro, it’s 2025. Robot vacuums, dishwashers, washing machines, and delivery apps have solved 95 % of that. Five minutes from my house there’s a supermarket hot-food counter where I can buy a full dinner for roughly the same price (and zero time) it would take to cook it myself. Housework is no longer a valid selling point.
3. Raising kids together
You’re jumping ahead — we haven’t even established why a man needs a wife yet. Yes, kids usually come with a wife, but that’s a separate question. Even if we grant that a wife is needed for kids, having kids is insanely expensive, stressful, dangerous, and a lifelong anchor. That’s not only a motivation — it’s also a massive demotivator.
Plus, the desire for children is at least as strong (probably stronger) in women as in men, so it’s not a uniquely male incentive. Before you can sell marriage with “think of the children,” you first have to sell men on wanting children at all.
And so far I haven’t heard a single compelling reason from you why a man today should actually want kids in the first place.
So yeah, still waiting for an actual positive motivation that survives contact with 2025 reality.
“it depends on the lifestyle” — seriously?
What lifestyle are we even talking about here?
- Even a tiny 1-bedroom apartment for a childless couple is insane money now. Add one kid → need 2 bedrooms. Two kids of different sexes → need 3 bedrooms. A 3-bedroom apartment today is oligarch territory. A real house? Might as well be Mars.
Boomers and most Millennials caught the last train where a normal salary + mortgage could still buy something. Zoomers aren’t even in the same universe.
Healthcare?
When I was a kid, a dentist came to school with his chair — free check-ups, free treatment. I could walk to any doctor alone, get tests, procedures — zero cost. Parents only bought the meds. (During the Soviet era)
Now? You can’t send a school-age kid to the dentist without a fat stack of cash. Every cough, every fever instantly triggers “how big will this hospital bill be?” panic. Nothing is free anymore.
Children's summer camp? My parents got a free voucher from the union. Today you basically have to win the lottery or sell a kidney.
So please tell me — what “simple life” are you talking about?
Because right now even the rock-bottom, no-frills version of raising kids is completely out of reach for the average guy.
That may be in the Ukraine. Not quite the same here in the USA, despite what you may have heard from angry men who claim that they were 'raked over the coals' by their ex's (financially). Statistically, it is women with children who come out worse off financially than their ex-husband's.
You’re talking about the USA, I’m talking about Ukraine. The reality here is completely different:
Divorce rate is higher than in the US.
Joint custody basically doesn’t exist; in 95 % of cases the mother gets the kids and the father becomes legally powerless.
She alone decides whether you see your children or not. Court visitation orders are just paper; she can ignore them and nothing happens to her.
In practice, whoever gets the kids also gets the apartment/house. That means she gets everything.
So after divorce a man usually ends up with no home, no kids, and a big chunk of his salary taken for child support.
And 86 % of divorces here are initiated by women.
Tell me honestly: is this risk worth it? Where exactly is the motivation for a man to sign up for that?
By the way, this is also the answer to the question “why do I even need a wife?”
If you look at marriage as a way to have kids, in Ukraine it actually turns out (in ~70–80 % of cases) that a wife is just the person who gets child support paid to her while making sure you never see those kids again.
Maybe start by actually listening to why more and more women don't want to marry and have children.
Seriously?
How is hearing a woman explain why she doesn’t want marriage or kids supposed to convince a man to marry her?
If anything, it just gives him one more reason to stay single.
Any man today can already list fifty reasons why he himself doesn’t want this.
Sending him to listen to her fifty reasons isn’t motivation; it’s just doubling the list of red flags.
So again: what exactly is the positive incentive for a man here?
Still waiting for an actual answer.
Men and women BOTH face serious financial risks if they get divorced.
But women face more emotional and physical risks of getting married in the first place.
No. Just no.
A man faces catastrophic financial AND total loss-of-children risk the moment he signs the marriage papers.
The woman faces almost zero risk: she keeps the kids, keeps the home, keeps the cash flow (alimony), and can block the father from the children with zero consequences = zero.
Emotional and physical risks for her?
But for a man the risk is: lose everything you’ve worked for your entire life + become a stranger to your own kids forever. That’s not “serious financial risk,” that’s financial and existential annihilation, and it happens in the majority of divorces here.
Still waiting for the part where this becomes motivating.
