Pardon my poor attempt at being snarky about marriage. I also write that legally it's legally extremely helpful. My comment is about partnership. The views and expectations of modern women have evolved and as you note, most men continue acting from the same frame of view. That's fundamental to whether or not a successful partnership can be made. It's not very surprising that both men and women are struggling to deal with this. As an aside, because as you point out this discussion is not about "marriage is dumb", one interesting thing that's taken some getting used to in the Nordics is that it's very common to never get married. Couples will live together, have children together, and somewhere in there _maybe_ get married (maybe half of them or so?). There is a legal framework that works for this and it differs a bit whether or not children of come about in the partnership.