Forum user claims money defines manhood

Salary as condition: The man valued only by what he earns

Some argue that a man without money ceases to be considered a man. This phrase is repeated without nuance, summarizing an uncomfortable thesis: men would receive affection only conditionally, while providing resources. Behind this lies a mix of evolutionary argument, economic history, and personal experience that has taken root in conversations about salary, partnership, and offspring.

Those who defend this idea do not mince words: the only unconditional love would be that of a mother for her child, and even that is debated. Everything else would function as a renewable exchange. The starting question is as simple as it is brutal: if the man does not bring money home, does anyone want him?

Where does the thesis that a man without money is not a man come from?

The first pillar is evolutionary. For tens of thousands of years, men hunted, gathered, farmed, or generated wealth in some way, while women remained in the settlement caring for the young. From this division, a conclusion is deduced that is often repeated: the male obligation to provide for his family is not a trend, but a heritage of millennia that recent laws and customs have disrupted, leaving men at a crossroads.

The second pillar is the market. Asking a woman to choose between the same man earning €2,000 or €10,000 a month assumes the answer. In this logic, money is not a supplement: it compensates for flaws, opens doors, and acts as collateral. It is an entry requirement, just like having legs in good working order.

The third pillar is identity. Some take the reasoning to the extreme, claiming that if salary defines a man, ceasing to earn equates to ceasing to be oneself. A salary is not just a figure: it is a biography, this interpretation suggests, admitting nuances for temporary breaks—studies, projects, transitions—but not for prolonged absence of income.

The counterexample that forces qualification: couples supporting the man

Not everything fits the mold. One of the most repeated cases is that of a man who had been unemployed for almost two years, supported by his partner, a situation he himself described without drama. Another profile appears on the opposite side: seven years unemployed, living off an inherited house and aid, more than a decade without a partner and with no interest in status symbols, with reading, dogs, and gardening as his only plan.

Both cases share one element: in neither does economic attractiveness sustain a romantic bond. But they share another, which skeptics use to refute them: they are not the norm.

The figures used: from €800 to €10,000 a month

When the conversation moves from philosophy to arithmetic, thresholds appear. Between €2,000 and €2,500 a month is set as the floor above which, according to one forum user, a man stops being "despicable"; below that, the view is that he does not compete. Another calculation compares someone earning €800 with a rival earning €5,000 who can offer a lifestyle of appearances, concluding that the balance is only restored if the former compensates with domestic dedication, logistics, and maintenance.

In established couples aged 45 or older, the pattern described by a forum user in their circle is symmetry: doctors with doctors, teachers with teachers, nobody lowers their purchasing power level. The cited household units manage between €5,000 and €6,000 a month and reproduce their position rather than mixing it.

Age and social circle weigh as much as the paycheck

Here is the nuance that breaks the thesis of money as the sole variable. Cases of men without resources who ended up paired with women from wealthy families almost always have the same origin: they met at 17 or 18, in the same school or university, before anyone took stock of assets. The girl is taken out of circulation early, and the rest compete at a disadvantage.

That is the kind version. The bitter one is an age-based chronology that repeats insistently: conventional relationships until 22, a decade of rotations and mismatches thereafter, and around 30—some lower the threshold to 25—the drop in expectations and the search for a stable partner. It is not a law, it is a caricature, and like all caricatures, it exaggerates traits that exist.

Showing money or not having it: appearance as a filter

A variant of the argument holds that having assets is not enough: you must display them. Clothes, car, gestures, the feeling that someone handles bills. In a society where appearance weighs heavily, those who do not show are left out of the circuit even if they have funds, and those who show without having also find their place. Hence a repeated conclusion: money functions as a revealer of character, multiplying what was already there—generosity or meanness—and exposing whoever receives it.

This reasoning has its favorite proof: lottery winners. It is claimed that nearly 80% end up penniless within ten years. The figure is thrown out without a source, as almost all are in these conversations, but it serves its purpose: demonstrating that money does not create virtues, it only amplifies them.

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And amidst all this, the only relationship accepted as unconditional is that of a mother with her son, yet there are testimonies denying even that: mothers whose behavior is described as predatory, not as refuge. If not even that bond survives, does any remain that does not depend on what one earns?