It's common for people on PPD to look at some of the ideas discussed here in a very black and white way with no nuance. People will take the most literal definition of a concept like hypergamy and use it to create a strawman that is easily knocked down. Things like "if hypergamy is real then why isn't my husband a millionaire?" This happens across every topic discussed here but I wanted to take a look just at hypergamy for now.

At its most basic, the idea is that women date across or preferably up. Another way to think of it is that women want to date men who are "better" than them in some areas. Now of course that can sound kind of weird and maybe sexist, but it's really just the idea that women are not going to be attracted to a man who is poorer, less successful, less educated, uglier, shorter, weaker, less confident, less socially skilled, and less intelligent than her. He can get away with being lesser in some of those areas if he's extraordinary in others but for the most part she wants a man who her friends and family will say "he's a catch" not "wtf is she doing with him."

So here are some different definitions of hypergamy that I think can all be valid (or not) to varying degrees in different situations.

  1. There's probably a really academic definition of hypergamy that talks about the caste system in India where women will marry within her own caste or up into a higher one, but never down. Of course this isn't relevant to modern US dating but the basic principal is the same, across and up.

  2. Sometimes I see hypergamy tied purely to education. I think this is an outdated idea since higher education is a lot more common now and might not be quite as reliable an indicator of career success, ambition, or socioeconomic background that it once was.

  3. Two people might both have little money, education, career success, and things like that, but maybe the man is still bigger, taller, and stronger than his partner and can fix and build things, and these are enough for her to think that he's a catch. It's a subtle basic form of hypergamy.

  4. Hypergamy can be cross generational. If a woman who grew up working class and is the first in her family to go to college marries a man who was raised upper middle class, and they both have similar degrees, careers, and salaries, she is still essentially marrying up. This might manifest in benefits like his parents giving them the downpayment for a house or other socioeconomic and cultural contrasts between their families.

  5. Some men here try to define hypergamy as women wanting the best man available in their dating circle. I don't really agree with that personally. Even if some women have inflated standards they still know roughly what their smv is and the average women know they don't have a shot with the hot rich guy. But she'll know who her options are and choose the best from those, still while possibly trying to shoot above her own level.

  6. Relative hypergamy like that can also come into play with women who are branch swinging, or comparing potential new partners to her past partners. A woman's best partner probably sets the bar for what she expects in the future and some women will just stay single rather than settling. And usually women aren't going to try to branch swing to a lesser man, although that leads to the next point:

  7. The man's "level" is based on the woman's perception of him which may not always be accurate. Women can fall for a guy who talks a good talk and portrays himself as being more successful than he is. So women might try to branch swing to a man who seems objectively like a step down from her current partner to everyone around her, but she still believes he's an upgrade for whatever reason.

  8. Hypergamy is a drive and a desire, but that doesn't mean that all women can always achieve it. Seeing two average people married to each other doesn't mean hypergamy doesn't exist. Those women might have been happy to date up higher if they could have. Plus over half of marriages in the US have the husband as the primary or sole breadwinner, so the majority of couples already exhibit hypergamy on the most basic level. And importantly this is all totally natural and there's nothing wrong with it. Women don't need to try so hard to debunk something that should be plainly obvious and easily understood.

  9. "But men do it too." Of course everyone wants the best partner they can get, and men will often leave a partner for someone they think is an "upgrade" but that's not the same thing as hypergamy. Men are perfectly happy with a partner who makes less, is less educated, from a poorer family, and is his equal in attractiveness. And men will often cheat or branch swing simply for variety and end up with a woman who is lesser in many ways than his ex.

My overall point is that these things can all be true or not in varying degrees in different relationships and circumstances. You can't point to one narrow definition and pretend that debunks the entire concept. You can't say "my husband is a high school grad and I have a masters degree, therefore hypergamy doesn't exist". You have to look at the whole broader concept and different ways it might manifest in real life.