Lately, I’ve noticed that more and more single men are openly discussing their desire to marry rich women. The trend is worth noting because it represents an inversion of gender roles in the traditional approach to marrying for money, which, over the course of history, has predominantly involved eager young women unabashedly pursuing eligible wealthy men.
This sudden emergence of mercenary bachelors can be explained, in part, by the poor state of the American economy. Increasingly, enterprising young men are losing faith in the conventional career paths that once guaranteed healthy-sized fortunes. Banking, as well as other professions in the financial sector, no longer promise truly irresistible rewards. And in addition to the troubles on Wall Street, there seems to be a consensus among the upwardly mobile that the nation has entered something of an economic Dark Age, where virtually all efforts to get rich the old-fashioned way through hard work and ingenuity are futile. Over the summer, I spent some time chatting with close male friends of mine about the status of their romantic lives. A few of them were enjoying casual relationships, but mentioned that they genuinely wished to settle down for good (preferably with a mate who could easily afford to support them for the rest of their lives). These discussions also included gossip about other men we knew, who were not simply talking about marrying rich women, but were actively pursuing a massive fortune at the altar. One of these audacious young men came within a few short steps of reaching his goal only to have his fiancée’s family place an ironclad pre-nup in his hands shortly before the ceremony. The maneuver set off a raging storm that ultimately tore the couple apart without hope of any future reconciliation.
Personally, I must admit that I don’t find it entirely surprising to see a growing number of bachelors cashing in on financially sound marriages. In this difficult economic climate, people are working whatever schemes they can to ascend the exclusive ranks of high society, the least harmful of which, it appears, involves professing love in exchange for money. Plus, there is a cultural precedent for precisely this sort of male ambition. I can’t say that men in the past would have publically acknowledged pursuing rich women with such fervor, but it certainly did happen. I’ve mentioned fashionable men of society in this column before—the legendary Porfirio Rubirosa among them—who always were sure to choose exorbitantly wealthy brides. In iconic American fiction, there’s William Dean Howells’s novel, The Rise of Silas Lapham. In one remarkably hilarious scene in the book, the patriarch of an old-line Bostonian family admonishes his son for preferring to work for a living instead of relying on the charity of his parents or the dowry of a potential new wife. This “plebeian reluctance” to depend on the wealth of others, the father laments, is the reason America shall never have an aristocracy of its very own.
Today, of course, people are far too pragmatic to consider whether or not their nuptial plans uphold ancient patrician values. Money and lifestyle are chief among the concerns of modern day swains. Until recently, women alone were associated with such “gold digging” ambitions and business strategies. But drastic changes in the economy, along with other significant social and cultural shifts, have encouraged men to embrace the time-honored practice with equal resolve.
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/09/these-days-the-men-are-gold-diggers
http://www.the-spearhead.com/2010/09/15/are-men-becoming-gold-diggers-too/
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