The Economics of Love

I thought it would be fun to post some related posts from blogs that I read. This is from my friend Medicus at http://brainbitsfrommedicus.blogspot.com/. She's not really a spinster, she's too young for that, but she is a single gal. Enjoy.

The Economics of Love by Medicus

"Recently I've been reading The Eustace Diamonds by Sir Anthony Trollope (which I highly recommend to anyone curious about the novel). The main conflicts involve characters that get tangled up in legal harrassments and love affairs because of a set of fabulous diamonds. Amid this melange of crime, politics, and romance, Trollope addresses the issue of love in marriage. Does marriage based on money pay off? Can marriage based on love weather the plights of poverty?"
"This conflict of love versus money in marriage is actually a relatively new predicament to mankind. It wasn't until relatively recent times that Western societies could afford to make marriage arrangements based solely on love. Marriage has historically been mostly an economic business transaction. From the words of anthropologists, marriage is traditionally a relationship between two men made manifest by the exchange of a woman. The transfer of goods for a woman symbolizes the transfer of rights. Types of traditional economical changes include bride wealth (money from husband given to bride's family for compensation), bride service (husband gives service to bride's family for compensation), and dowries (bride has money from her family to bribe grooms to provide security)."
"We can't forget that marriage is also a contract to help untangle the issue of sexuality. The marriage transaction and resulting contract establishes a continuing claim to the right of sexual access to a woman, which involves the eligibility to bear children. Therefore, marriage also links property and inheritance."
"To put it simply, marriage is historically an issue of "sexinomics." In today's society, we can afford to marry for love, but do we really throw aside the primeval sexinomical issues when we are searching for a mate?"

That is a good question, Medicus. I'm sure when we are looking for someone to marry we look more favorably on gainfully employed, at least somewhat, ambitious guys. (Just a sidenote, isn't it interesting that ambition is usually a trait admired in men, but not in women.) Well as my Dad likes to advise me, "Don't marry for money, just hang around the rich until you fall in love!"