【正确答案】It makes no sense to say that a good marriage requires parity, as most marriages in the world and throughout history have been based on entirely different principles. You might even conclude from America's unusually high divorce rate that the expectation of equality and personal fulfillment is itself a more problematic prescription than that of honor and obedience.
Or perhaps the problem lies not in equality, but in the ambivalence that inevitably surrounds a titanic cultural shift only decades old. Many women today still sign up for marriages in which the man, to some extent, dominates. Traditionally those marriages have ended when the stronger party tires of the dependent. When Harriet Newman Cohen began practicing matrimonial law three decades ago, her clients were mostly women whose breadwinners had walked out. But she and others have observed that today, it is as often the weaker party who calls it quits, tired of a role that is no longer culturally sanctioned. And, once equitable distribution laws— which forced the higher-earning spouse to share the wealth equitably—were passed in the 80's, there was no longer any financial penalty for divorce.
Today, almost as many women as men file for divorce. Infidelity, in addition, is no longer a primarily male province. One divorced investment banker discovered that, within his circle of male friends, it was their wives who cheated, not they. " In the culture of my firm, having affairs is just bad behavior, like drunk driving—something that could harm your reputation," he says.