In the West many people would argue the roles the OP describes are reversed and they feel like the women get to relax while the men work. Of course this is a generalization, but it does not make it inaccurate. There are many social and economic differences that cause these results in both places.

IMO marriage was originally conceived of to build society, and a lot of evidence supports this premise. Human beings left without societal norms will often instead of building families, which are the fuel that builds economies and societies, will tend to fall into less constructive rolls. What tends to happen is the women gravitate towards the top 20% of men, and those men form sort of "harems" of women and the rest of the 80% of men do not form family units which are critical for a society's development. This is often referred to as the Pareto principle, and is also supported by numerous peer reviewed studies as well as internal analysis of dating sites.

As a result of this problem, the concept of marriage was implemented to balance the natural tendencies evolved in women for hypergamy, searching for the best conditions for themselves and their children, with the need to build society we all benefit from.

Obviously the intent of marriage was to create a balance from the natural order, but like any human system it is imperfect and often does fall out of balance.