> physically and emotionally ground down. 
• Why is the marriage the source here? Everyone gets exhausted by their situation sometimes, but if someone says their marriage caused this, my assumption would simply be that their relationship may be unhealthy for some reason. But that isn’t a problem of marriage, that’s just what happens to unhealthy relationships of all kinds.

> underemployed or in dead-end jobs.
• Similarly, how is this the effect of marriage? I’ve never known any situation where someone married with a bad job was unable to fix it until they got divorced, then suddenly their job opportunities exploded, or vice versa. 

> physical freedom is curtailed and social life is policed.
Also, in what way does marriage relate to this? Are you suggesting that without a marriage couldn’t be a problem?

My take, and I hope this isn’t taken as disrespect, is that you have misunderstood the source of the problem. A normal relationship and a marriage are functionally no different at all. Getting married or divorced will neither fix nor create problems, unless the problem is *the relationship.* Marriage is a label, it doesn’t even exist. It’s like saying you live in “a house” vs living in “a home.” It’s the same building either way. If your house is rotting, calling it a home won’t fix it.

If you were asking for thoughts and opinions, what you describe just sounds like an unhealthy relationship, but whether it’s label a “marriage” or not makes no difference. If the relationship, and job situation, and social life have problems, “marriage” isn’t going to make it better or worse or even meaningfully change it. Only the person themselves and/or their partner’s choices and behavior are what create those problems.