Spousonomics: Using Economics to Master Love, Marriage, and Dirty Dishes
Paula Szuchman
Language: English
Pages: 352
ISBN: 0385343949
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Are you happy in your marriage—except for those weekly spats over who empties the dishwasher more often? Not a single complaint—unless you count the fact that you haven’t had sex since the Bush administration? Prepared to be there in sickness and in health—so long as it doesn’t mean compromising? Be honest: Ever lay awake thinking how much more fun married life used to be?
If you’re a member of the human race, then the answer is probably “yes” to all of the above. Marriage is a mysterious, often irrational business. Making it work till death do you part—or just till the end of the week—isn’t always easy. And no one ever handed you a user’s manual.
Until now. With Spousonomics, Paula Szuchman and Jenny Anderson offer something new: a clear-eyed, rational route to demystifying your disagreements and improving your relationship. The key, they propose, is to think like an economist.
That’s right: an economist.
Economics is the study of resource allocation, after all. How do we—as partners in a society, a business, or a marriage—spend our limited time, money, and energy? And how do we allocate these resources most efficiently? Spousonomics answers these questions by taking classic economic concepts and applying them to the domestic front. For example:
• Arguing all night isn’t a sign of a communication breakdown; you’re just extremely loss-averse—and by refusing to give an inch, you’re risking even greater losses.
• Stay late at the office, or come home for dinner? Be honest about your mother-in-law, or keep your mouth shut and smile? Let the cost-benefit analysis make the call.
• Getting your spouse to clean the gutters isn’t a matter of nagging or guilt-tripping; it’s a question of finding the right incentives.
• Being “too busy” to exercise or forgetting your anniversary (again): your overtaxed memory and hectic schedule aren’t to blame—moral hazard is.
• And when it comes to having more sex: merely a question of supply and demand!
Spousonomics cuts through the noise of emotions, egos, and tired relationship clichés. Here, at last, is a smart, funny, refreshingly realistic, and deeply researched book that brings us one giant leap closer to solving the age-old riddle of a happy, healthy marriage.
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American Economic Review 90, no. 5 (2000): 1346–1361. 6. Starting in 2007, the U.S. credit crisis For more on Mr. Cassano’s role in the financial crisis, see Michael Lewis, “The Man Who Crashed the World,” Vanity Fair, August 2009. 7. In one recent experiment Carl Mellström and Magnus Johannesson, “Crowding Out in Blood Donation: Was Titmuss Right?” European Economic Association 16, no. 4 (2008): 845–863. 8. Which led to an increase Michael G. Vann, “Of Rats, Rice, and Race: The Great Hanoi
$5 million to buy a new house? You know what? Let’s go for it—if he defaults, we can always get Uncle Sam to bail us out. THE PRINCIPLE: PART TWO So what about the moral hazard lurking in another kind of insurance policy—the one you got the day you were married? The one that says you’ll be taken care of in sickness or in health, if you lose all your money or win the lottery, if things get better or take a turn for the worse? The policy delivered by the state in the form of a marriage
off at home, then meet her friends at the bar. When she mentioned her plan to a friend at work, he looked surprised. “He said if he was sick and his wife handed him a pizza and went back out, he’d be hurt,” Caroline told us. That struck a chord. “I saw myself from the outside, and I didn’t like what I saw.” The pizza incident inspired Caroline to talk to Tom. “What’s going on with our marriage?” she asked, expecting that at worst, this would lead to a garden-variety fight. What ensued was not
It wouldn’t happen overnight, but she could start by, for instance, vowing to nod and say “Gotcha” or “No problem” or “Sorry” when he told her to get her nose out of her BlackBerry for five stinking minutes. We’re not saying she had to bend to every one of Dave’s demands. She didn’t have to say, “You’re right, I’m a horrible wife,” every time Dave was mad—she just had to listen and avoid getting defensive. You might not think it’s very romantic to apply the roles of “principal” and “agent” to
live?” Martha barely noticed that Phil no longer asked about her work. (Here’s a tip: If you come back from a two-week trip to Darfur and your husband doesn’t ask you how the trip was, call a marriage EMT.) She was constantly busy, organizing fund-raisers and book drives, planning trips, or returning from them. “It didn’t feel to me like my life was all that different,” said Martha. “I was putting the same amount of energy into other people, they just weren’t the people living in my house.”