In that example you're getting nothing in return. I'd never argue that you should take risk with no possibility of reward.

Then why are you arguing in favour of Marriage 2.0?

The benefits of Marriage 2.0 accrue only to women. From the point of view of a man, there is no benefit he receives after the wedding, which he does not get from cohabiting before it, or without it. Marriage does not entitle him to a single enforceable thing.

Sex? No, that's still completely her choice. People have been tried and convicted for "raping" their own wife, but there is no record in the modern era of any wife facing social or legal consequences for refusing sex to her husband, regardless of how long this goes on.

Children? No, that is entirely up to her. If she doesn't want to get pregnant, he has no say. If she does, and she "forgets" her birth control, he cannot stop her from having it, cannot give it up for adoption, and is on the hook to provide for it even if he leaves her, or even if she leaves him. Even if he never wanted it in the first place. If he did and does, courts always award custody to the woman, unless she is actually beating them, and he can prove it.

Fidelity? No, he has no legal right to stop her from having sex with whoever she wants, and, while he can end the marriage, no-fault divorce means that she will suffer no negative consequences for being the one who broke the wedding vows, other than the dissolution of the marriage itself, which he also suffers. Thus, the perpetrator of infidelity and the victim suffer the same punishment.

Social respectability? No. Women have enhanced social status from getting the ring. Not men.

A tax break? Yeah, see, now, here, at the bottom of the barrel, we find something. In other words, marriage is such a bad deal that the government has to bribe men to enter into it. But while you can always add a gross benefit by bribing people, that doesn't translate into a net benefit.

The expected value of a marriage is the Sum of over the probability of gain, times the magnitude of that gain, minus the probablity of loss, times the magnitude of that loss. (Actually, it's more complicated than that, but if you want details, I happen to have an actuary close at hand.)

Turns out the expected monetary value of a marriage, for a man, is negative. Despite the tax breaks.

So we're left with nothing. It's just a bad move. It doesn't matter how small or large the risks are if the benefits are zero.

Now, I understand you're teaching male sexual strategy, but realism is part of that strategy. Women are even more risk adverse then men, and if you next everywomen that doesn't feel like playing house and just relying on your goodwill to never skip out, you'll probably miss out on some quality women.

Yes, women could force men to commit by withholding sex. If they had the upper hand. They don't. Because an embargo must be universal. Nowdays, any man who can get a woman to accept a marriage proposal can get laid without needing to make one.

But what about withholding commitment, cohabitation, and kids? Women can't embargo those either, because they want them a lot more than men do. Men don't get baby rabies. Men love their children when those children are there in front of them, a concrete reality, but when they don't have any kids, they don't pine for them.

Women cannot embargo commitment, because men, not women, are the gatekeepers of commitment.

Interestingly enough, I've noticed a trend in the black community that's very similar to what you seem to describe as the ideal situation. That is men and women having kids together and raising them as a family without every getting married. It's interesting in that its a departure from the stereotypical absentee black father figure, yet still something different then the sterotypical suburban picket fence ideal into a new family structure. I wonder if they will make its way into mainstream America soon.

Blacks are the canary in America's coal mine. They are the most volatile community in terms of social structure, and thus respond the fastest to the pressures that shape the social environment.

Whatever the black community looks like at any time, white America will look like later, usually after a number of decades.

If the state redefines marriage in a way that kills it off, black men will stop getting married right away, because black men are used to being fucked by the system, and can spot right away when the system is trying to fuck them, either through malice or incompetence.

White men are more trusting, having only recently become targets for systematic abuse. Thus, it takes them a while to catch on. Usually, they have to see a number of their friends and relatives become causalities, and often, it takes more than that... it takes seeing this over and over again, while they are still children.

This means the collapse of white America is in the same pipeline as the collapse of black America... but one or two generations behind.