A hashtag rules social media “How to marry rich”. In countless variations. From “How to dress like you’re rich and belong” to “How to quickly find out if your date is actually rich and not just pretending.” Up to “Where do you track down the really rich men?” Men – because the “How to marry rich” phenomenon is currently all female.
This didn’t leave the author and financial expert Shruti Advani in peace. Not that she has problems with luxury and wealth, on the contrary – but Advani is wealthy and successful. And she warns her younger sisters not to follow TikTokers and influencers whose stated goal is to hook up a rich guy so they don’t have to work. (Why you should never set out to marry rich: And I know because I live in a world full of wives who wish they hadn’t!)
Advani is neither naive nor under the illusion that the gold-digger species was born with TikTok. Remember the Hollywood film “How do you get a millionaire?” from 1953. The difference: TikTok loudly promotes a strategy that was previously pursued more discreetly. Advani warns against this lifestyle, not because it is immoral or unfair. She says it just doesn’t work. “Marrying just for money doesn’t guarantee happiness. And I should know because I’ve lived with women all my life who have done that.”
She describes her own life succinctly as privileged, which can be described as beautiful, wealthy and successful. She admits that she is used to luxury and enjoys it. But she never relied on a man for that. Before that happens, she would give up the luxury life. She couldn’t stand the “mockery and prejudice” that a trophy wife has to live with. The financial expert warns the TikTok followers. Trophy Wife may carry a wicked glamor image. But the truth is, a woman “loses her own identity, she becomes an appendage of the man.”
She remembers the little humiliations as a woman when men didn’t take her seriously, but only saw her as the “wife of” whose luxury car obviously had to belong to her husband. And who cannot be responsible for expensive purchases herself, but should first ask her husband for permission. But in her life these are small things, because these prejudices are based on a mistake: she has her own money. For the upstart who married for money, these humiliations define life. And that rarely goes well, even if the start was glamorous. “I have met many Cinderellas in my life and only a few have had a happy ending.”
A sword of Damocles hangs over the “lucky one” who scored a hit: “The almost constant fear of not being good enough or of being replaced by a girl who is better.” The game of “this is how I get a rich guy” doesn’t end just because the man is married, it remains “fair game” for the next woman who comes along. Advani is tough as steel. If a girl like that came after her boys, she would write her a check and chase her away.
If a separation occurs, the luxury is over. Finance woman Advani dispels an illusion: There is no wedding without a marriage contract. Such a woman will live in luxury but never have any money of her own. For the nest egg there is “wives’ money laundering”. Shops that specialize in discreetly turning your husband’s brand new gifts into cash. “This is a chilling reminder of the humiliation of financial dependence and an ironclad contract,” Advani said.
A woman who only found her place at a man’s side and thus in society through tricks and dissimulation remains trapped in the role of an impostor throughout her life. A woman pretending to be someone else. She will never be able to be herself. She is never loved for her own being. The older she gets, the more strenuous and desperate the acting becomes – and not just in the marriage bed. “It’s a cruel game and ultimately a fruitless one. The women affected by it undergo a relentless routine of grooming and self-improvement, running faster and faster to stay in their place.” In the end in vain.
Those: Daily Mail
