There are predictable defenses whenever someone says marriage in America functions as coercion for women.

“It’s voluntary.”
“Women have equal rights.”
“Abuse is about bad men.”
“Many marriages are egalitarian.”
“Women benefit economically.”
“Men suffer too.”
“The problem is enforcement.”
“Don’t compare it to slavery.”

Let’s take them one by one.

1. “Marriage Is Voluntary.”

Entry is voluntary.

Exit is not neutral.

Freedom is not measured at the altar.
It is measured at the door.

If leaving triggers financial destabilization, custody risk, reputational damage, and elevated danger of violence, the structure contains coercive leverage.

A system that punishes exit is not neutral. It is controlled.

Modern control does not block entry.
It raises the cost of leaving.

2. “Women Have Equal Legal Rights.”

On paper.

Women can own property. File for divorce. Seek protective orders.

But rights without enforcement are decorative.

If protective orders are weakly enforced,
if coercive control is reframed as “conflict,”
if financial abuse disappears into procedural delay,
if custody battles reward the party with greater economic stamina—

formal equality masks operational vulnerability.

Hidden systems look neutral in statute and unequal in practice.

3. “Abuse Is About Bad Men.”

If exploitation were rare, this argument would stand.

But unpaid domestic labor is normalized.
Career sacrifice is gendered.
Caregiving is assumed.
Exit destabilizes the lower-earning spouse disproportionately.

Institutions distribute leverage.
Marriage concentrates it.

When patterns repeat across households and decades, we are not looking at isolated pathology.

We are looking at structure.

4. “Many Marriages Are Egalitarian.”

Exactly.

They can be.

Which means equality is optional.

If fairness depends on the goodwill of the partner with greater structural leverage, then equality is not embedded — it is granted.

Benevolence is not justice. Optional equality is not equality.

5. “Women Benefit Economically.”

Dependency often feels like stability.

If compliance is rewarded with shared income and protection, but exit produces income decline and insecurity, that is not neutral partnership.

When one party performs disproportionate unpaid labor and absorbs disproportionate post-separation loss, the economic architecture is not symmetrical.

Modern slavery does not require chains.

It requires dependency plus exit penalty.

6. “Men Face Risks Too.”

Financial obligation is not equivalent to bodily vulnerability or labor extraction.

Men may pay.

Women disproportionately lose earning power, career trajectory, and safety during separation.

Burden is not the same as exposure.

Risk symmetry is not power symmetry.

7. “The Problem Is Enforcement.”

Now we approach the core.

If enforcement repeatedly fails at the precise moment leverage is exercised — during separation, custody disputes, financial disentanglement — that failure becomes structural.

When harm is predictable and correction is weak, the system is not neutral.

At some point, consistent failure stops being accidental.

8. “Don’t Call It Slavery.”

Modern slavery does not look like plantations.

It looks like:

• Labor that is unpaid but expected.
• Economic dependency framed as protection.
• Social and legal friction that deters exit.
• Risk that escalates when autonomy is asserted.
• A narrative that individualizes harm to protect the institution.

Marriage in America does not legally declare wives property.

But when labor is extracted, autonomy is economically penalized, and exit activates danger that the system absorbs without urgency, “modern slavery” is not hysteria.

It is description.

The Hidden Design

No statute says “enslave women.”

That would be illegal.

Instead, we inherited a structure shaped by:

• Religious doctrines that once erased female legal identity.
• Economic systems that undervalue caregiving.
• Cultural expectations of female sacrifice.
• Legal processes that are expensive and slow to unwind.
• Social penalties for women who leave.

The result is an institution that can be loving and equitable — but only when the more powerful party chooses to make it so.

If equality collapses under conflict, it was never structurally secured.

Modern slavery does not require visible chains.

It requires leverage.

Marriage concentrates leverage — economic, social, legal — and calls the outcome partnership.

When that leverage is exposed, we are told it was just a bad man.

But when the pattern repeats, the problem is not the man.

It is the design.

Hidden.
Normalized.
Fiercely defended.

The Structural Data

This is not anecdote. It is pattern.

1. Unpaid Labor Disparity
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics time-use surveys consistently show that women in heterosexual marriages perform significantly more unpaid household and caregiving labor than men — including when both partners work full-time. This labor is economically essential and uncompensated.

2. Post-Divorce Income Decline
Research in family economics, including work by sociologist Lenore Weitzman and subsequent longitudinal studies, shows that women experience substantial income decline after divorce, while men’s income typically stabilizes or rises. Mothers face the steepest economic drop.

3. Separation Violence Risk
The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence and multiple criminology studies report that the risk of intimate partner homicide increases when a woman attempts to leave or has recently left a relationship. Exit is statistically one of the most dangerous moments.

4. The “Broken Rung” in Promotion
Research from McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.Org identifies the largest gender gap in corporate advancement at the first promotion to manager — the “broken rung.” Early caregiving burdens compound over time, reducing women’s long-term earning power. This is gendered modern slavery in the workforce.