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Notes -
It is a cultural change not a biological one. Long term relationships are valued less, personal freedom is valued more. Everyone wants to extend their adolescence. Women are encouraged to find themselves through short term flings while anyone speaking out against the status quo is seen as controlling (which to be fair is often a reasonable complaint).
I am not familiar with the dating market of twenty years ago, but I would imagine that long term relationships were more highly valued, and regarded as something important you might miss out on if you are too slow. Combine that with fewer options to sleep around and more status loss for doing so.
In the past, women's behavior was policed more closely and they were more heavily encouraged to control themselves. I would argue this, along with them needing a man's income to help care for the kid, caused the perception that they had some internal biological drive to form lifelong monogamous relationships. Just like people in the west take our morals for granted as natural inborn human virtues only to be surprised when they are not shared by immigrants. It turns out that a lot of what we thought was natural actually had to be taught. It was just such an integral part of society that it was never questioned in the first place. Now we are radically changing the things that we teach, and finding out that the natural state of humans - women included - is more base and savage than we thought.
I suspect that finding the right balance between enforcing prosocial behaviors and allowing people maximum personal freedom, while also minimizing authoritarianism, is going to be a major challenge in the future.
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