There was a good article about this phenomenon on dating websites: people struggle to commit because it’s too easy to find new matches. Five minutes of googling has failed to turn it up, sadly.

Adshade’s proposed marriage vows:

“I, [name of groom], agree to enter into a contract with you, [name of bride], that will govern the terms of our marriage. I accept that while I have met other women whose qualities were such that they surpassed my minimum requirements for a bride, the fact that they found me lacking has led me to choose you, my love, as my wife. What you lack in terms of education and
income, you more than compensate for with your youthfulness and attractive appearance, and I vow that this trade-off is sufficient for me to choose you as my bride. I promise to be faithful, even though the low cost of searching and your inevitable declining value might one day encourage me to seek a new wife.

I vow to work with you toward the common goal of exploiting the division of
labour in the production of household goods so that our household will prosper.

I will continue to invest in my human capital to ensure that your future
expectations of our household income are met. While it may not be rational, I pledge to invest in our children and my asset portfolio as if I expected us to be together until death do we part.”

“I, [name of bride], agree to enter into a contract with you, [name of groom], that will govern the terms of our marriage. I accept that while I have met other men whose qualities were such that they surpassed my
minimum requirements for a groom, the fact that they found me lacking has led me to choose you, my love, as my husband. What you lack in stature and attractiveness, you more than compensate for with your level of education and occupational choice, and I vow that this trade-off is sufficient for me to choose you as my husband.

I promise that any children born into our marriage will be biologically your own, even as I know that I will be tempted to seek short-term relationships with men who possess a better genetic endowment. I will sacrifice my own human capital for that of our children, in the knowledge that you will bring in sufficient resources for our family to ensure our well-being.

While it may not be rational, I will quell my inclination to behave in a risk-averse manner and pledge to invest in our marriage and my asset
portfolio as if I expected us to be together until death do we part.”

I’ll have to give that a go at some point – never heard of it!

I mean’t to note at the end of this post:

“I have ignored the signalling and consumption explanations for marriage. That is just my bias, I’m a sucker for a beautiful story of overcoming insufficient relationship specific investment”

But then the website crashed …

I also meant to mention sunk costs at some point, but the website crashed before I was finished but after I had told it to auto-post. This may teach me to actually hold off setting up the auto-post until the post itself is finished …

I spend a week in my “Current policy issues” class on Sex, Love and Economics….