However, in tandem with state enforcement of male provision to women, a new dowry system emerged among the middle classes and above. Instead of directly compensating the husband with cash or an allowance, parents train their daughters to be paid employees who will bring home a sizable contribution to the family, and who can support themselves financially. This is the upper-middle-class marriage norm today. Well-educated urban men simply will not marry women unless these women can provide an income to the family. This is the basis of the marriage gap that has emerged in recent decades.

Women in the lower classes cannot provide the income desired by higher-status males, and they have nothing to contribute to the home of a working man, so few men are willing to take the chance and marry them. In fact, for many working class men, it is cheaper and easier to pay child support and be a part-time father than to put up a woman who can neither run a home nor earn any income to speak of. I have noticed that a working class urban culture is slowly developing in which men no longer even take the idea of marriage – even to the mothers of their children – seriously at all. On a positive note, I see many more of these men out and about with their children today than I did a couple decades ago.

Neither of the above trends amounts to empowerment of women, and for most women they are a step down. It still may not look that way today, but the trend is headed clearly in one direction: a restoration of reciprocity. The short-lived era of one-way obligations in favor of women is drawing to a close.