I have a different take on this. It's not that marriage controls hypergamy, marriage also worked in the Soviet Union without any religion.

I'm from Russia, where it's tradition that women marry when they're young and fertile. 25 is considered old in the traditional sense, but because of western values spilling over "old" for marriage is now adjusted to 30.

Women in Russia experience early how hard it is to find a "good" man that is ready to settle down. Let's be clear, no one forces women to marry someone they don't want, they're still the selecting gender and men make the advances. But they get a glimpse of reality, that many western women experience too late or never.

Women live in a world where they can, even if they look sub average, hook up with the upper bracket of attractive males. They can even have semi-serious short or, if they're lucky, long term relationships with them.

But what russian women know that western women don't know what their real value outside of the "fuckable" range is. Marriage in this regard is the great equalizer, because it shows that the alpha male for the homely girl is as much an illusion as the top model for an average beta shlub. Problem is, that western women get so much in physical and emotional contact with high value men, that they think it translates also into marriage with kids. They think, with their overinflated self-worth, that they deserve a great man, because of the positive feedback they got from them. I don't want to say, that hypergamy isn't real, but it shouldn't be hypergamy on steroids, where over 40 year old "independent women" think they deserve a top 10% male, when their pussy often isn't even worthy enough for a One Night Stand.

Hypergamy in countries like Russia is healthier, because men aren't undervalued and are more experienced at an earlier age, which makes them less thirsty and gives them an edge in their second or third marriage (of course they can stay in the first, if they want).

Men don't even have to look good or learn game, because they, in comparison to western men, know their real value which automatically makes them more confident in a natural way. All because of an earlier marriage.

The western woman is often unable to love someone less worthy than the alphas, that inflated her self worth to get into her pants. She is a concubine who thinks she's a queen. In a world where monogamous marriage is still the standard and desirable for most women, it is sad to see that so many are unmarriageable because they're trained to be in a harem.

There needs to be a more casual approach to marriage, not that supercostly "till death do us apart", divorce rape mess. Where people know how to get married and what it takes to get and be married, so they can make mistakes early on to learn from them when it's not too late. Where a woman is able to see her great-grandchildren before her death, because she got pregnant early enough and not in a time where her biological clock forced her to in the last minute.