Maybe that used to be the case when divorce laws were written, but today I know very few marriages with the wife in a traditional role like that. The modern marriage has the home workload split equally and very often outsourced. Cleaning services, laundry services and food delivery are accessible and affordable while costing much less than the salary of a full time person doing those tasks and in no way worth paying for with half your assets.
So in a divorce it comes down to earning potential vs spending habits. Earning potential for women is generally less than for men due to their preference for lower paying, humanist fields and their spending habits are generally higher.
That is why divorce proceedings are generally more profitable for women than the accrued assets of the single life.
> Most men don’t fight for custody of their children in divorce. When they do they are almost always successful at getting at least joint custody.
That is just not true. Couldn't read the paywalled Opinion article on WaPo but no judge will remove the mom from the kid's life unless there are very good reasons (drugs etc) but they routinely consider monthly payments from men enough. Unproven allegations of abuse from the wife are often enough to remove the dad from the equation.