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In the 1953 movie, How to Marry a Millionaire, three women pretended that they were wealthy, set themselves up in a luxurious Manhattan apartment and went on 'the prowl' to find wealthy men to marry. They got their way but they had to go through all sorts of mishaps and adventures first.
Now finding a millionaire husband is much easier! He may be just a mere click away, in fact. There is a plethora of websites devoted to helping young, beautiful women find wealthy boyfriends or husbands on the Internet and even some which assist men who want to meet rich women. Their popularity is rising.
These web sites include Sugardaddie.com, Wealthymen.com and MillionaireMate.com. Sugardaddie.com has hundreds of thousands of members and the other millionaire dating services are also attracting a large number of following.
Although some millionaire dating sites are free and men don't have to be millionaires to join, most subscription based matchmaking services have more stringent requirements. The newest site, MillionaireMate.com, which has been dubbed "where wealth & Beauty find each other", is a very exclusive dating site which includes a proprietary wealth verification system to help women land the right man. And although the verification process varies from service to service, men who verify their incomes voluntarily by their tax returns have a better chance of meeting a lot more women.
Women who use these exclusive dating websites should beware if they are not young and beautiful; their chances of meeting their ideal man are less likely to happen because men who use these services are usually looking for very attractive young women. For instance, Sugardaddie boasts 'models and beauty queens' amongst its members. MillionaireMate states that they are an upscale site where men can "save time searching for beautiful, sophisticated women". Some of these websites will actually exclude people who aren't considered wealthy or beautiful enough by the administration!
These sites have been heavily criticized for encouraging 'gold-digging' and greed, unsurprisingly. There is no doubt that the women who use them want to be taken to fine restaurants, exclusive nightclubs and expensive trips. They generally want to live the life of decadence and many probably want to happily settle down with a very wealthy husband, not have to work, and have servants attend to their every whim. The men want young and beautiful women to show off to their friends and colleagues to match their Porsches and Ferraris.
There is some truth in the accusation. One woman at Wealthymen.com dated an older man who paid her rent, car payments and college tuition. But as the founder, of Sugardaddie.com remarked in an article in The Independent, the women here are "looking for men who have ambition, who want to get on in life. The men on here are professional men, city bankers, doctors and so on. Why shouldn't that be attractive to women?"
Arguably most members of these sites are looking for true love as well as wealth or beauty. Why is there anything wrong with being calculating enough to only look for love with a millionaire or a young and very attractive woman? When Elizabeth, the heroine of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, first saw Pemberley after refusing Mr. Darcy's proposal, she got very upset understandably. She regretted that she refused to be the mistress of such a large and grand estate. This helped Mr. Darcy's suit and the pair ultimately found love. As Jane Austen realized wealth has always been attractive to beauty and vice versa. After all, as Marilyn Monroe sang in How to Marry a Millionaire, 'diamonds really are a girl's best friend!'
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