Matchmakers charge $25,000 to find business wives for rich men

Blaine’s matchmaker Anderson, who runs the upscale dating service Dating by Blaine, receives a lot of very specific requests from her wealthy male clients, many of which she documents on her popular social media accounts.

But no one was more difficult than the man she referred to as Daniel. (Anderson uses pseudonyms when discussing her clients to protect their privacy.)

Daniel was in his early 40s and had never been married, but was looking forward to starting a family, according to Anderson. Like most of her clients, he is very wealthy, a successful technology founder who sold his company a few years ago. (Anderson, who works exclusively with men, charges $30,000 to $50,000 for her services; she says she charged this particular client $49,000.)

But Daniel had, Anderson recounts, “very, very specific requests.” He wanted to date a younger woman who prioritized marriage and having children. He wanted a woman from the Midwest (even though he didn’t live in the Midwest himself) who was in the caregiving profession, but couldn’t become a doctor, “because that would mean she was too focused on her career,” Anderson says. He wanted someone conventionally beautiful, and even specified how steep her eyes should be, or how many centimeters her nose should be from her upper lip.

Needless to say, Anderson says, Daniel was ultimately unable to find a match. But even though he was a unique case, the qualities he was looking for in an ideal partner were not unique at all.

Anderson and other professional matchmakers tell WIRED that the men they work with are increasingly demanding to approach traditional, religious conservative women — regardless of whether they themselves identify as traditional, religious, or conservative.

“They’ll say things like, ‘I want a Christian woman,’ or ‘I want someone with the values ​​of a wife and a mother,'” says Anderson, who noted on X in February that she had seen an increase in “matchmaking requests from non-religious men” seeking such women. “In a lot of these cases, what they’re trying to get at is that they want a business wife.”

Since Trump’s re-election, much has been made about the rise of the trade wife, an aesthetic that celebrates stay-at-home motherhood, 1950s femininity, and the shift toward traditional gender roles. The traditional wife ideology, popularized by creatives like Hannah Neeleman (aka Ballet Farm) and model Nara Smith, urges women to ditch hustle culture in favor of a softer, gentler domestic lifestyle.

In popular culture, such as the breakthrough novel last yearThe Traditional Wife was mocked as virulent right-wing propaganda aimed at erasing decades of feminist progress. Still, the aesthetic holds undeniable appeal — not just for women who consume Smith and Neeleman’s softly lit, rustic content, but also for men who desire a more submissive partner.

In the dating arena, young, mobile men are increasingly asking to be matched with women who prioritize stay-at-home motherhood over careers, says Erika Kaplan, vice president of membership at national matchmaking service Three Day Rule, which charges $25,000 to $100,000 for its VIP package. “I hear a lot of words like ‘faith’ or ‘traditional’ or ‘family-oriented’ to indicate the type of life these men envision with a partner,” she says.

Interestingly, Kaplan says, this trend isn’t limited to red states, where men may be more inclined to seek out a woman with conservative values. In New York, for example, she says she increasingly sees “high-achieving” men, especially in finance, asking to be matched with traditional women. She says that in light of the current political climate, young people are feeling “more comfortable” and are openly asking for “more politically aligned matches, or religion-based matches”, because they want “their children to grow up in a certain type of family”.