I think its dangerous to use capitalist rules in your personal relationships. We're given messages from birth telling us we are our possessions, and people with better cars, better houses, higher-paying jobs, etc., are better people.
This is why I hate terms like "the marriage market" and "exchange theory" in relationships; economics has colonized the language of love like it has everything else. Yes, often we treat our potential partners as just another asset or demonstration of worth, like a car or the latest fashion. And this creates a nasty "trade in, trade up" mentality in relationships.
There is a book I saw somewhere but haven't read - "Consuming the Romantic Utopia" that I want to get my hands on, as it supposedly talks about some of these concepts.