I don’t think it worked this way. I am in my late forties and from a country where the sexual revolution started in the 80s so I could see the way the old system was.
“My point, however, is that there is a particularly nasty kind of discontent that arises from having to have sex with someone you are not attracted to sexually, having no choice in the matter, and having no way out.”
There was no such a thing. Most marriages stopped having sex or had it in very rare occasions. This was supposed to be a normal thing. I have inside information from my parents’ marriage, three of my uncles’ marriages and one of my older cousins’ marriage. It is not only that women were not enthusiastic to have sex with a beta. In addition, men were not enthusiastic to have sex with an aging, fat woman.
But people were relatively content. Not happy as in “Hollywood happy”. From my father’s four siblings, one of my aunts married a natural alpha and they have been very much in love since then. A happy marriage, even now in their mid-eighties (However, sex was scarce because she is a very old-fashioned Catholic woman). My mother was one of the first feminists (the first one to have a career in our area). She was completely miserable because of having married a beta (and because she has bad personality genes). But two of the other aunts were so-so. I know they loved their husbands but they were not in love with them, not even during the courtship period, before marrying.
What was the difference, then? The difference is that, back then, people (men and women) had LOW EXPECTATIONS. Or, to be accurate, had REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS.
Women were satisfied if her husband was an average provider, treat them well and was a good father. Men were satisfied if his woman was an average homekeeper, treat them well and was a good mother.
Husbands and wives were not meant to be “the best friends”, “twin souls”, to have “fantastic sex” or be “passionately in love”. These ideas were not even thought. People was not frustrated because their life was not perfect. They were reasonably satisfied.
For the people that were not satisfied and were completely miserable (which were a minority), they went to Catholic priests (there were no shrinks back then), who repeated once and again “resignaaaaation”, “paaaaaaatience”. Then they went back to their lives and life went on.
Then, movies, TV and magazines started selling the idea that marriage should be a fairy tale. Divorce was legalized (it was illegal before that). This had no effect in the older generation, but my generation lived their lives differently and each generation is more crappy than the previous one (the way it is in America).