The institution of marriage is crumbling in the West, and many Christian thinkers have been quick to blame feminism for the decline. During our debate on The Crucible moderated by Glenn Lawrence, Andrew Wilson argued that feminism, by encouraging women to pursue education and careers instead of early marriage and motherhood, has fundamentally disrupted the fabric of traditional marriage. While feminism certainly plays a role, it’s not the root cause. The real issue is unchecked hypergamy—women’s innate tendency to seek relationships with men of equal or higher status—and how our modern culture has exacerbated its effects.
For centuries, cultural norms like chastity before marriage acted as guardrails for hypergamy. A woman might desire the attention of a high-value man, but without the assurance of commitment, she’d eventually align with someone within her own sexual marketplace value (SMV). This created balance in the dating pool, ensuring that most men and women paired up, married, and built stable families. However, the sexual revolution removed these safeguards. Women, now free to engage in casual relationships without the stigma of premarital sex, increasingly find themselves vying for the top 10-20% of men—the so-called “Chads”—who often have no intention of committing.
Here’s the problem: those top-tier men, who represent a minority, are monopolizing the attention of the majority of women. They cycle through multiple casual relationships, leaving a significant portion of average men—the good, marriageable men—invisible to women. By the time these women realize that their biological clocks are ticking and their SMV has decreased, they often settle for men they would have previously overlooked, or worse, choose to remain single. This imbalance leaves countless men without partners and perpetuates a culture where marriage is delayed or abandoned altogether.
What Andrew Wilson and others fail to recognize is how this dynamic directly ties into the breakdown of marriage. They’ve never lived in the world of the “Chads”—a world I know all too well. For most of my adult life, I was one of those men with options. My friends and I had rosters of women vying for our attention, most of whom wanted commitment, not just casual flings. But because the culture allowed—even celebrated—our behavior, we had little incentive to settle down. Why commit when the options seemed endless?
The irony is that this hypergamous imbalance could be addressed through a biblical solution: polygyny. Polygyny allows high-value men to marry multiple women, providing a structure where their resources, leadership, and protection can benefit more than one family. Instead of a top-tier man wasting years cycling through casual relationships with dozens (or in my case, hundreds) of women, he could build a stable household with multiple wives, raising godly children in the process.
Imagine a scenario where the “Chads”—the men with the resources, charisma, and leadership qualities—aren’t just playing the field but are instead leading multiple families. This model, rooted in biblical principles, transforms what is currently a source of instability into a force for good. Women would no longer waste their prime years chasing non-committal relationships with high-value men. Instead, they could join a family structure where their husband’s commitment is real and their futures are secure. Simultaneously, this would free up the dating pool for average men to find partners more aligned with their SMV, restoring balance to the system.
This isn’t just theoretical. The Bible provides numerous examples of polygynous marriages that thrived under God’s guidance. While it’s not without its challenges, biblical polygyny acknowledges the reality of human nature and channels it in a way that benefits everyone involved. It’s time we stop clinging to cultural norms that clearly aren’t working and instead explore solutions that align with both Scripture and common sense.
The collapse of marriage in the West isn’t irreversible. By addressing hypergamy and considering alternatives like biblical polygyny, we can restore stability and purpose to relationships, ensuring that marriage remains a cornerstone of society for generations to come.
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