I think most of the other points made are just a resultant from desire to appeal to other sex. Security, stuff, housing, all that. It is relatively trivial to s

I think most of the other points made are just a resultant from desire to appeal to other sex. Security, stuff, housing, all that. It is relatively trivial to sustain oneself, without family and other people dependant on you. Family is hard. And, spoken like a true life form, furthering our gene makeup is what it's all about, for the most part for the most of us. We can do Maslow's hierarchy here or some other model of motivation, but for me, this is the core of it in today's times. Disclaimer here being that I'm speaking from male perspective (and there's an obvious significant difference in motivations accross genders). As for your acquaintances, I'd doubt that it could be generalized to whole "rich" population. What your acquaintances have problem with is, well, their problem. Not a trend.