Why bother to get married?

Women today seems to be empowered a lot compared to my grandma even my mum's generations. A classic story from my grandma was that she had never seen my grandpa until the day they got married (Otherwise bad luck I was told).

That obviously wasn't an issue. My grandparents happily married for over 50 years. My mum, seeing and mostly writing to my dad (I inherited their long-distance-relationship-capable genes) for quite sometime before she made up her mind, didn't have much luck though. At least she was brave enough to divorce which was very uncommon at that time in China.

I was 13 then and even I knew the divorce was coming and my mum would not have done it without my support. It was still not a pleasant story to tell. For a long time I kept it as a secret and didn't even tell my closest friends.

By comparison recently my friend's teenager daughter handled the same situation very well. "Can you wait until this semester ends?" That was all she said. My friend was shocked and mostly relieved as she has worried about her daughter's feeling towards parents' divorce.

For sure the next generation of women will be even more powerful. It's hard to imagine there would be anything they cannot do without a man. To have a baby? Maybe, maybe not. Even now women can have their "own" children without man on board, as long as they decide to knock on the door of a sperm bank or an adoption agency.

From "whether to adopt" to "what's for dinner", it should be a lot easier to make a decision for one person. You also hear economists say "divorce is good for women". If that is the case: why bother to get married?

According to this NYT post, hedonic marriage is the answer. To cite the author's,

"We believe that the answer lies in a shift from the family as a forum for shared production to shared consumption. In case the language of economic lacks romance, let’s be clearer: modern marriage is about love and companionship. Most things in life are simply better shared with another. … The key today is consumption complementarities — activities that are not only enjoyable, but are more enjoyable when shared with a spouse."

Aha!

No I am kidding. I knew that answer without running models and digging into historical data. As I always say,

"Single? Happy. Double?! Happier!"

Supply or demand side of explanation apart, I think there is another reason these economists haven't considered yet. I want to get married also because that makes me feel "more in love": people do crazy things when they're in love, then why not get married?

Yes yes I know it is illogical; and yes, maybe that is why economists haven't counted it yet.