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You can force a woman to marry you under this regime. You can't make her like you, and I think even the dispossessed men will be frustrated when the woman saddled with them clearly doesn't want to even be in his vicinity and only by force tolerates him around her.
Now, it could sort of work if there were dating bureaus where people did get realistic assessment of "no, you are not going to get Chad/no, you are not going to get the hot anime waifu, this is your level in potential mates" and people have a choice as to whether they hit it off with the assigned date. But if you are relying on force and coercion, you won't get "she really loves and values me for myself" if that's what you're after.
You can get workable relationships that develop into mutual affection and respect over time out of that system, at worst "well I have to get married, might as well be this guy". But I think if you want to think of yourself as "dispossessed", you won't settle for that. You want the hot, desirable girl lusted after by others but she is head-over-heads in love with you and thinks the sun shines out of your backside, not the relationship that's "we're mutual helpmeets in an up-and-down world, let's make the best of things, yes my hair will go gray and I'll get thicker round the middle after having a couple of kids over the decades, you'll go bald and need glasses and forget where you put things, we'll soldier on together".
I don’t think this really defensible after you look at civilized society say 100 years ago. Most people say 90% sorted themselves, changed their minds about what they can expect from the partner that they can get, settled, and learned to love their partner, let’s say varying definitions of love, and they had long relationships, made children, built a family, etc.
To me it seems like what you’re describing are these idealized fantasies that people have before they try to find long term relationships and sort of reset their expectations and self-perception for what they can actually get.
Yeah I mean I know enough relatives who grew up in effectively these conditions (My dad's in his 80s now, has a large number of female siblings most of whom married before 20 to get out of the house/after getting pregnant) and I don't think the average quality of match is some massive departure from what the same women would be doing circa 2025. It's all pulling from the same fundamental social networks for the most part, and 'I'm going to select for somebody who is a somewhat stable wage-earner' as a motivation produces different results to 'I'm going to select for whoever gives me the strongest emotional pull'.
I also feel similar about arranged marriage as a whole. I'm not supporting knifepoint 12 year olds marrying 80 year olds, but I've got Indian friends and that 'strong introduction to somebody of about the same SES as you' pathway seems to work pretty fine on the aggregate? Maybe I have insufficient faith in the ability of people trying to self-source 'love matches'
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