Marriage and Love Economics

Author: Zhou Shi
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: What is economics? This is truly a profound question, especially in modern society, in this market economy society, marriage as a major life event naturally involves economics, and it's impossible to detach from it; it's becoming increasingly intertwined. A good love and marriage are like accidentally winning the lottery in a welfare lottery, while a bad one is like making accounting errors, where the books cannot balance. If the accounts are wrong, they can still be corrected, but love and marriage are different. Marriage requires a cost, and the cost of divorce is even higher. How can we make love beautiful and marriage happy? What is the difference between youthful, vibrant love and marriage for establishing a family and building a career? This is indeed a question worth pondering in our lives, worth taking seriously. The articles selected in this book may not be a panacea, but they come from life, are an elevation of life, and are a reflection of life. They can broaden one's horizons and are truly practical. Marriage has become an economy, and it has many principles, so you can't help but laugh. After laughing, think about it—indeed, marriage is truly an economy, depending on how you look at it. The 1992 Nobel laureate in Economics, Gary Becker, said: "Since men and women compete for partners, it can be assumed that there is a market in marriage." In reality, the existence of the marriage market doesn't need to be assumed; the emergence of various matchmaking agencies and companies is enough to prove its existence. He also said, "When the expected utility of marriage exceeds the expected utility of remaining single or finding a more suitable partner, a person will decide to marry." "The benefits of marriage come from the complementarity between men and women in investing time in non-market activities and acquiring market goods." American researchers on marriage issues, through nearly 25 years of investigation, found that when asked what Americans value most in their quality of life, "marriage" is always the top answer, ranking before friends, work, and money. British researchers have even provided an equation for a wealthy marriage: the annual income or happiness derived from love or a happy marriage is equivalent to 167% of a man's income, while divorce or widowhood has a 4.25 times greater impact on women than losing their job. Some even say, "It's now an era where couples jointly start businesses to win wealth." This shows that because marriage brings material and spiritual benefits to people, choosing to marry is indeed a rational choice that maximizes utility under constraints. —Ye Xingkun Marriage and Love Economics is truly worth learning. Marriage and love are major life events—how can they not be studied? "The governance of a nation is nothing greater than the relationship between husband and wife, and the relationship between men and women." This is a sentence strongly emphasized in the Song Dynasty's Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals. Between husband and wife, and between men and women, there are not only various economic relationships, but also physiological, psychological, ethical, political, and other relationships. When I have time, I would like to continue along this line, delve deeper, and edit a series of books. The titles of these books would be: Marriage and Love Physiology, Marriage and Love Psychology, Marriage and Love Ethics, Marriage and Love Politics. For now, let me dream a bit here—this should be quite interesting.
II. Love is a Game
Love is a game, and there are usually more than two players. The outcome of this game rarely has no losers. Love games can only achieve a Nash equilibrium if there are only two players, but in most cases, love games often result in mutual loss or losses for multiple parties, with almost no possibility of a win-win situation. This is particularly evident among college students. Once a college student decides to date, it means the beginning of choices. An unofficial, informal survey on why college students date showed that most who do so are not truly yearning for sacred love but are influenced by various realistic and complex factors. The two most important influencing factors are the emptiness of college life and the need for sexual desire. This may also explain why cohabitation is so popular in today's society, as the behavior of highly educated individuals is generally accepted and imitated by others. The balance of power between supply and demand is disrupted by the scarcity of resources on the supply side, creating a competitive situation where demanders compete, and both supply and demand engage in a joint game. Gender imbalance is a potential market premise, suggesting that "even the most excellent men may remain single, and even the most despicable women can find a husband," so in gender-based games, men are generally in a relatively disadvantaged position, and male-male games are often quite ruthless. (This does not consider the case where some men, such as being good at sports, attract the admiration of many girls, though such situations are becoming less common as people's behavior becomes more rational.) Although the supply side is scarce, due to differences in personal preferences, women may still become the demander. "Men chase women like chasing flowers, while women chase men like fishing for shrimp," women still have certain advantages in the game. Love games originally had a first-mover advantage, meaning that the first to enter the game had an edge, but this is gradually changing as people's perspectives evolve. The advantage of being the first is still present but is no longer as significant or decisive. Let's assume Y and X are a couple who are either preparing to date or have already started. At this point, there are no binding constraints between them, and dating follows the principles of freedom and voluntary choice. They form a market, with each other as both suppliers and demanders, creating a one-on-one game. Y and X face more than one game scenario, but their first task is to prevent new market entrants (assuming they are genuinely in love, regardless of their motives), which requires mutual commitments and threats to deter potential entrants. Next, the game between the two generally tends toward a Nash equilibrium, but due to the threat of potential entrants, this equilibrium is somewhat unstable to some extent. Love games may never reach an equilibrium state. Most students date out of practical needs and have no intention of seeking an equilibrium. Those without any economic foundation simply invest in love, which, apart from alleviating some of the emptiness and boredom of college life, offers no significant or potential benefits. It can only lead to greater emptiness or regret later. In this context, the assumption of a rational person is more applicable than the assumption of an economic person.