Example from within my own extended family:
Wife was employed in the medical field making an annual salary of 150K+. Husband was a mid-level manager at a bank who was never going to make anything remotely close to that. She got tired of his “lack of ambition” and proposed that they have an “open marriage”. He refused and they split. Shockingly to all of us, they got back together a few years later. Apparently she played the field and could not find any takers.
Women go for men with status, wealth, and power. The men with status, wealth, and power want women with youth and beauty. A 50 year old woman, even if she's making six figures, is unlikely to to find a better man than she could have landed at 25. That's not how it works.
The classic deal with marriage, was that a woman would offer her youth to her husband, with the understanding that he would also need to care for her when her youth was gone.
Now, women waste their 20's partying around, and are shocked when they try to land a husband in their 30's, and see the response is "No Sale".