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Comment by nradov | Hacker News Reader

This Harvard Business Review article advised professionally ambitious women to remain single if they can't find a highly supportive spouse. I don't know if that's good or bad advice, just found it interesting.

https://hbr.org/2017/10/if-you-cant-find-a-spouse-who-suppor...

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I wouldn’t advise anybody to marry someone unsupportive.

The issue is that the "supportive" quality high achieving women look for is different from the "supportive" quality high achieving men look for. Essentially, the modal supportive wife wouldn't be given the time of day by potential high achieving female spouses if her gender were switched. What (straight) women value in a mate is very different from what (straight) men value in a mate.

Even if the alternative is not to marry? Does it depends on weights of preferences?

For your health and happiness, it is better not to marry if the marriage is an unhappy one. There have been many studies on how marriage impacts the health of men and women. Happily married people have better health outcomes than single people. Unhappily married people have worse health outcomes.

From one of the articles I cite below, "Marital stress is associated with lifestyle risk factors and nonadherence to medical regimens. Poor marital quality is also linked with more depression, hostility and anger, all risk factors for coronary heart disease. Thus, marital status and quality could influence metabolic risk factors and acute stress responses, which in turn predict cardio-vascular morbidity and mortality, according to the study."

https://www.health.harvard.edu/mens-health/marriage-and-mens...

https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2003/09/marital-bene...

"Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife." - Proverbs 21:9

"To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion" - The Apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians 7:8-9.

Professionally ambitious men should remain single if they can't find a highly supportive spouse.

The point in the GP comment is with how many women refuse to marry below their income/professional status and socioeconomic level.

You can try to flip genders and try to make it sound sexist, but obviously that doesn't work here, as the post suggests. A successful 50yo man can easily find a partner; A successful 50yo woman cannot (as easily).

Don't obsess over who looks sexist. Focus on the main issue that having a supportive partner is priority #1.

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