I dunno. I see it the same way
@Barrister does. Partner does NOT signify equal, by the way. It means whatever role has been negotiated by the parties involved (which is nobody else’s business). While that is a legalistic way to view it, I’m a lawyer’s daughter. There are many unequal partnerships in business and in life. My father used to say frequently that getting married is very much a partnership in a legal sense. And he would always explain: The reason you negotiate a partnership agreement at the outset when everyone is getting along, however unpleasant that may seem at the time, is that such an agreement sets in place the tenets and conditions of dissolution IF dissolution is ever necessary when the partners are NO LONGER getting along. It defines dissolution as a primary objective when all parties are positive about the future and in an agreeable and reasonable frame of mind.
To make someone a partner in whatever capacity denotes a privileged and special relationship between people in their endeavors, whether the endeavors are business or personal. You only partner with people who are worthy of trust (unless you are an idiot) and you negotiate whatever agreement best suits the needs of the partners.
How that impugns men I fail to see. If anything it calls for prenuptial agreements if there are assets in question at the time of marriage, for example. I am going to either insist on a prenup, or put everything I own in an irrevocable trust, or both. Best to marry poor, at least on paper.
Partner to me is interchangeable and denotes a special, privileged status in my life. So does fiancé and so does husband, which are the terms I use the vast majority of the time in my own affairs, but this is seriously word salad hulabaloo.
