In the middle ages in Europe and in modern times in many traditional societies in Asia, including the Indian subcontinent, and Africa today, when a husband marries a woman, the woman is obligated to bring a large dowry ( consisting of such things as large sums of money, farm animals, furniture, and electronics) and all her wealth become the property of her husband for life, even in the case of divorce!
Compare this to our so-called advanced western society, where the husband is expected to provide at least a home for his new wife on marriage (in my case I already owned a dental practice, a furnished townhouse and an investment property), while the bride brings nothing (and in some cases even brings a debt – like my wife who brought a substantial HECS debt of unpaid university fees, which I paid out for her) and in case of divorce, all the assets of the husband that he brought into the marriage become the property of the wife! So we have gone from one extreme in the dark ages, to another extreme on the opposite end of the spectrum in our modern times!
Yet science and history tell us that extremes are always fraught with danger and collapse and the ideal, stable way, is moderation, a middle ground. So what happened, how could we go from one extreme to the other, while skipping the middle ground altogether?!