The sexes are valued differently. Women have a short reproductive window, an asset half-life of maybe twenty years after they reach maturity ( legal drinking age? college graduation?). They leverage that asset against our potential to sustain and advance the economic status of the union because, face it, even the best of us is at best unobjectionable to look at. If the union fails, accounts must be settled.

They are rational when it suits them and irrational when it suits them. Norwegian bachelor farmerdom is worse for us and they know it. Check and mate.