hypergamy

Definition

In academic sociology, hypergamy simply describes the observed pattern of people — in most studied societies, more often women — marrying partners of higher social or economic status. The manosphere borrowed the word and hardened it into a claimed law of female nature: that women are perpetually scanning for a better option and will discard a partner without hesitation when one appears.

The gap between the versions

The academic version is a statistical tendency that varies by culture and era and has been shrinking as women's education and earnings rise. The manosphere version is universal, biological and permanent — and it does the ideological work of justifying preemptive distrust of women. The claims database examines what the evidence actually supports.