What do you think of the saying "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?"?

I think that puritanical sex-negative idiots, who think people making each other happy with sex is a commodity like milk from a cow, are kinda icky.

a) Most men can't get milk (sex) for free. It's usually only the very attractive or charming men who have that kind of luck. Most men usually have to exhaust some kind of effort one way or another.

b) Any man who believes in that saying is essentially saying that he believes that all women have to offer in marriage is sex. Any such man is not marriage material and should be avoided at all costs. Unless off course you're the kind of woman who really has nothing but sex to offer.

IF your goal is marriage, I suppose the expression has meaning still, but for both genders.

That is, if SHE wants sex and HE wants marriage, well, she may have to wait and/or marry too.

Ultimately, sex is NEVER free. It always entails at least some risk. But even ignoring that, women need the protection of marriage less with the advent of good reliable female birth control and lack of stigma surrounding divorce.

We re not cattle. We re not farmers. We re people.

That's what I believe it means.

And cows don't even get alimony.

It's very true(there's a reason strictly religious groups still marry on average between 17-21, where the normal-society age range is 25-30).

The bigger question is, does that matter? Especially when women, and men are all capable of providing for themselves.
Remember marriage was invented when only 1 gender was allowed to own land, and to work.

Marriage is for a large part about sex, because even in the most traditional ways, sex is what makes the difference between a good-friend, and a lover/partner.
If you can't have sex outside of marriage, you're very motivated to marry, all the way down to your biology.

so marriage = a hook up, got it.

Yes.

It means you don't have to take the responsibility of carrying an ugly women on your shoulders just for sex. More like saying "You don't have to buy a Dam for drinking water"(This one more specifically for fat women).