The basic, simple, biological reality is that women need to be having children when they're 18 - 25 and not when they're 30-45, and they need to be able to do that without having to marry men who are ten years older than they are. If our society is going to survive, that has to become possible again. What we're doing now clearly does not work.
Yes, many on this thread are still arguing for equal pay or equal division of the spoils in divorce - alimony, furniture etc. We should all be aware by now that, that is not working.
The point is that women are still better suited to be home with young children, making a home if you will, while the presence of testosterone - never mind cultural conditioning - makes men better at supporting that family.
This is not going to change for vast numbers of people even though they may be trying to live their lives according to the NOW agenda.
Men are not the enemy unless you insist on making them so.
"The basic, simple, biological reality is that women need to be having children when they're 18 - 25 and not when they're 30-45, and they need to be able to do that without having to marry men who are ten years older than they are. "
Why the objection to a 10 year age difference? In my experience, a woman in her twenties is a good match both physically and emotionally with a man in his thirties, ditto woman thirties, man forties, and on into later middle age. Girls mature emotionally much earlier than boys, and young men need the additional time to catch up, while the greater physical strength of men means that a younger woman will still be challenged keeping up with her somewhat older husband (in fact, even at a 10 year age difference, he's going to have to slow down for her, but the older man is much more likely than the younger to have the maturity to do that.) The older husband is also likely to be much more confident in himself as a man, and therefore less likely to seek to dominate her. And sexually, many women go through menopause in their forties, while men in their forties are still going strong.
All around, I think that an age difference anywhere from 5 to 15 years is just about perfect.
If you look back in history, women traditionally were considered ready for marriage around age 18, but they weren't marrying men their own age-- young men weren't considered ready until around 25. Judging from my observations of both my own and my older teenage daughters' generations, I think that's about right.
Unfortunately the economic realities are that the vast majority need two incomes to just live early on. Regardless of what anyone says food, shelter, clothing, and transportation have vastly outpaced increases in entry level income from 1960 on. You can post statistics until you are blue in the face but the vast majority of society is going backwards at an ever accelerating rate.
I know a woman who has been talking about how studies show that women marrying over 25 after completing their education have better marriages. She also thinks that arranged marriages work better than those who marry for love. When I said maybe I was an exception to her viewpoint (marrying young, and unless something drastic happens very happy), she said, "You're still young. I used to feel the same way." She's only four years older than me.
And what is the necessity of that? My children were born when their mother was 32 and 34 respectively, and it hasn't been a complete disaster.