Evie Magazine is a women's magazine that I actually appreciate. The women who run it are actually conservatives, and they actually tackle many cultural issues from a conservative woman's perspective in a way that makes it feel a lot more grounded and real than mainstream women's magazines do.
However, they did release an op-ed that actually made me do a double-take, because it would be the first time I've actually disagreed with something they published.
According to Evie, hypergamy is a myth.
The mainstream and more acceptable narrative among many online men’s groups concerning their endless troubles with women mostly revolve around what they insist is “hypergamy.”
— Evie Magazine (@Evie_Magazine) April 7, 2026
If a woman is unfaithful, blame hypergamy.
If a man isn’t a Chad, blame hypergamy.
If women are too… pic.twitter.com/ptp6qgXuv9
The mainstream and more acceptable narrative among many online men’s groups concerning their endless troubles with women mostly revolve around what they insist is “hypergamy.”
If a woman is unfaithful, blame hypergamy.
If a man isn’t a Chad, blame hypergamy.
If women are too picky and too difficult to please, blame hypergamy.
It’s now a scapegoat that has become all too convenient for millions of modern men to shirk responsibility for their own shortcomings with women.
Click here to learn all about it and why it's a myth: https://bit.ly/48rreIL
This is actually a sentiment I've seen pop up in various women's circles, too. The "hypergamy" conversation has become more popular, especially in men's conversational circles, because it explains why many women are rejecting more and more men. Obviously, the dating scene is a bit more nuanced than simple hypergamy, but it does take a large portion of the pie.
For those who've never heard the term or don't know what it is, hypergamy (hi-per-gum-ee) is "marrying or forming a sexual relationship with a person of a superior sociological or educational background," according to the dictionary. The more pithy definition is "marrying up."
The argument against this is that it's a "social construct" or, as Evie explained it, a bad excuse men use when the dating scene doesn't go their way.
Maybe, but rest assured, hypergamy is very real. In fact, it's not a social construct but a biological urge that had a social construct built on top of it.
Women are naturally geared toward finding strong mates that have the capability to provide, preferably in excess, and have good genetic traits, such as intelligence, that they can pass on to their children. This has been something desired since we were in caves, when females could breed with strong males in the safety and provisions that those males were capable of providing.
That choosiness from women never stopped, and it continues today and across cultures. A study from the University of Michigan from 1989 noted that, across pretty much every culture, women showed far higher preference for men with good financial prospects. Today, that hasn't changed much, as you hear reports of women trying to rope in a man in finance by stealing their lunches to artificially create a meet-cute.
You can even see hypergamy at work in the dating app world, as I reported in February:
According to SwipeStats, women's average match rate is 30.7 percent, where men's is 2.63 percent. This means women are more likely to find a match up to 15 times more than men. This is, in part, because of the supply/demand disparity, but it gets a little worse when you consider that women are far more choosy than men are by nature.
Read: Men Need to Abandon Dating Apps Immediately
So, it's natural, and to be honest, hypergamy isn't a bad thing. It's actually responsible for keeping our species healthy, strong, and growing in intelligence. We wouldn't be sailing around the moon right now if it weren't for hypergamy, at least in part.
The issue is that in today's day and age, hypergamy is working against many men and women. In the Western world, women are out-earning men more and more, especially in various cities. This has only elevated women's expectations and preferences to higher-status men, as the desire to find a mate that is of higher social status than they are is still buried within.
The issue is that men don't consider social status as an important part of finding a mate. As I've repeated many times, they'll take home the waitress they met at a cafe they frequent and make her into a wife and mother if he feels she's attractive and they have a connection. So, these higher-earning women are competing for men with an entire swath of other women of varying status, age, and profession.
To be clear, not every woman holds to the hypergamy standard, and many women marry or date below their income bracket, but it can't be denied that it's not preferable. In fact, Forbes reported that women in relationships where they out-earn their mates show higher strain and resentment.
So, we need to keep in mind that hypergamy is a reality. It's not a hard and fast rule, but it's not one we can completely shake off.
