How true is “A man is only loved under the condition that he provides something”?

We all have heard Chris Rock say “Only women, children and dogs are loved unconditionally. A man is only loved under the condition that he provides something.”. Well, we will today see if this was just a comedian’s catch-phrase or does it have any bearing to the reality.

First of all it is important to note that while the internet is brimming with wild claims of male privilege, and so called patriarchy, it is quite easy to get swayed with mass opinion and reject this notion. However, just because more people have an opinion does not mean that the underlying opinion has to be correct. Data doesn’t care about democracy. So now, the question is that what does the hard facts have to say in this?

Following are some data

Preferences of male and female

A study was conducted by NCBI across 45 countries. This study gathered data on preferences of male and female wherein participants from different parts of the globe rated their ideal romantic partner based on five traits

1. Kindness
2. Intelligence
3. Health
4. Physical Attractiveness and
5. Good financial Prospects

Additionally, they ranked these traits on scale of 1 to 7. After gathering data and crunching numbers the results that came out had stark difference for both genders. Following are the findings

In this graph every dot represents a country, and for the five mate preferences, positive values indicate that men had a higher preference than women for a particular trait, and negative values indicate that women had a higher preference than men for a particular trait. For age choice, negative values indicate that men had younger partners and women had older partners. 

It is not so difficult to understand that across all these 45 countries women collectively reported to prefer an older(compared to them) man with greater financial prospects. On the other hand, men reported to prefer an attractive young woman, which means they leaned over physical attractiveness more compared to women.

As you can see, Mahalanobis data shows that countries like USA, India, Russia, Mexico, Italy, Brazil and many more had somewhat similar sex differentiation in the overall pattern of mate preferences. Which makes it more evident that in general all countries have somewhat similar standards with equal significance on preferences.

In a nutshell, while society only focuses on physical objectification of women, it conveniently ignores financial objectification of men. No amount of screeming can change the fact that to this date men are objectified based on their earnings.

Men who cannot provide are more likely to die

One more thing that is widely accepted and is corroborated even by world health organization(WHO) is that more men tend to die of suicied way more than women. Also, Forbes has also noted in The Gender Inequality Of Suicide: Why Are Men At Such High Risk?

Men of lower socioeconomic status may, for example, feel the breakdown of a relationship more, and conversely, financial problems can contribute to marital problems and pressures. When things break down for men, they really break down.

Alice G. Walton

To pile on, Following is data from NCRB which compares suicide reasons and it’s deaths against genders.

As you can see, a man it is 11 times more likely to commit suicide due to bankruptcy & Indebtedness, 7.3 times due to unemployment and twice as much due to family issues than a woman.

Conclusion

We agree that all of us have our independent choices and preferences but on larger scale it is quite evident that men who can provide are clearly preferred over those who cannot. And that’s not it, most men who fail to provide are not only not-loved but are more likely to commit suicide. No it is not patriarchy, it is simple demand and supply. A man with no financial prospect is not in demand to be loved compared to a man with strong finances. Obviously not all men die due to these reasons but the general trend does suggest that Chris Rock’s statement “A man is only loved under the condition that he provides something” is not completely in vain.

Read more about Chivalry vs Societal morals. Who is preferred, Man or Woman?

Reality of ‘Body Positivity’, It might not be what you think.

Credit: https://labs.la.utexas.edu/buss/files/2020/03/Sex-Differences-in-Mate-Preferences-Across-45-Nations-2020.pdf