I'm guessing it's been a long time since you've had exposure to the dating scene, especially as it applies in the big cities. Dating and marriage has always been complex.
The risks we are discussing are not trivial. Up to 60% of marriages ending in divorce. 80% of those filed by women. For the man getting married today without a solid prenup, that equates to roughly a 50% chance that she'll decide to take half his stuff and leave him. At least in Colorado custody is a 50/50 split, but in a place like Wyoming, the man can effectively kiss his kids good by, along with 40% of his future income in child support. Again, there are not trivial risks.
Well, you're right, I have not had any personal exposure to the dating scene other than being around some younger people who are in it.
As far as child support goes, that is going to hit someone whether he is married or not and whether he gets custody or visitation or not. Hookup guy can still get nailed with that. As far as property splits go, Wyoming is weird compared to the other place I lived, which was a community property state with some cut and dried rules that pretty much let each person keep their separate property and split the community property. (Side note: you seem to be assuming that most or all of the property was brought in by the man rather than through reciprocal effort, so he is losing "his" stuff rather than divvying up their stuff.) That will vary from place to place, and a pre-nup may be a good idea if state law is bad or if there is a disparity of assets going in. It is especially important in a second marriage, which has a higher divorce rate, usually involves kids, and may involve disparate assets.
Cheyenne, you make some good points. Yes, I'm presupposing that in the majority of instances the man will bring more assets and earning power to the relationship. In general, men choose women for their beauty, and women choose men for their status. Women marry men of equal or higher status. The technical term for this is hypergamy, and occurs in the vast majority of marriages. Unfortunately the biggest thing women are bringing to relationships today is debt. They have 70% of the student loan debt, while men hold the higher paying degrees, which feeds into the next stat, they also hold 80% of the credit card debt.
So on average, a man getting married today can expect the woman to have twice the student loan debt, 4x his consumer debt, and few assets, and lower earning potential. Of course this is not always the case, but it is the median case. Today, two of the worst things for a marriage is the man pay off all his wife's debt, or the woman getting promoted to a position faster then her husband. Both strongly correlate with increased divorce rates.
