> It's mostly men who don't wanna get married and/or start a family and do all that stuff because (in states that have yet to reform their laws) they stand to lose half their shit and not even have half a kid to show for it.

> I have zero sympathy for people, of any gender, for whom not being on the favorable end of unequal treatment in divorce/custody is the marginal difference that makes them not get married.

I guess you have zero sympathy for a large chunk of men then, because first you say that men don't get married because they lose their stuff in a divorce, and then you say that you have zero sympathy for people who don't get married because of it.

I don’t believe my citations are wrong, nor that they’re out of context as it relates to demographic trends, but you’re free to provide your own if you have them.

Additional citations below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UThiu3Q_NcQ

https://19thnews.org/2025/09/poll-traditional-family-gender-...

https://19thnews.org/2025/09/polling-2025/

> I'm sure there are plenty of men downright eager to sign a contract relinquishing any paternity claim/liability as a condition of dating.

Are there?

I don't know. I don't think most men are as mercenary as that.

As someone who was literally offered this situation (a lesbian couple I was friends with that wanted a child) I can say that it simply wasn't something I could seriously consider.

How could I exist knowing that I had a child that I had little or no relationship with? A child who would constantly wonder about their father and why I wasn't part of their life?

I don't think it's just me, I think most guys would have a problem with that.

And maybe the ones that don't wouldn't be the best choice for being a father?

It is my belief, in the American macro of policy, it is simply rational and prudent for women to avoid marriage and children whenever possible (as a practitioner in risk management, assessing and managing risk, and a rationalist) so long as the policy is what it is. My opinion would change if the policy, macro, and experience changes and failure modes are less brutal (there’s ~$100B in child support debt outstanding, single parent outcomes are suboptimal, 23 million children live in a single parent home, etc). But as it stands, you’re setting yourself up for failure by entertaining marriage (considering 40-50% failure rates for first marriages) and children (two incomes required, $330k to raise a child 0-18 in 2023 dollars excluding daycare and college). The median household income in Kentucky as of this comment is ~$62k/year. Half of all violent crime in Kentucky over the last six years was domestic violence of both men and women. Returning to the labor force as a stay at home parent (if divorce occurs), regardless of gender, is challenging at best. Might as well skydive without a parachute and hope you’re lucky enough to fall into a tree.

People change as well. Who you marry is potentially not who you want or need a divorce from. Sometimes the economic unpleasantness can be avoided with prenups, but this is much more rare than it should be. Choices can lead to substantial long term obligations and liability, binding for one to two decades, and I think better choices can be made (based on the evidence and the data).

My opinions in this thread are not gender driven, but data driven.

(~40% of pregnancies in the US are unintended every year as well, per the Guttmacher Institute, although I don’t have Kentucky specific numbers at hand in that context)