Marriage has become more a spectator sport than a participatory one. Today, a couple goes it alone, while friends and family do nothing to ensure its success. In that aspect, we agree that the participation of the community is the key to success.

I would submit to you that a parallel of this idea is already taking place in some marriages, and that the model can be applied to countless others not merely for short-term material benefit but for long-term societal health.

Wise friends and family would go beyond discussing the matter among themselves to encouraging – even expecting – the couple to seek pre-marriage counseling. A pre-marriage inventory tool often brings out the very concerns that the friends and family might have felt or even expressed, but this time from an objective professional. The professional can then lead the couple to examine and address these potential weaknesses (as well as the potential strengths) revealed through the inventory.

Should the couple choose to marry, they should plan their ceremony with purpose. It requires a paradigm shift that considers invitees to the ceremony not merely as guests to be fed at a reception, but as investors in their marriage. Some savvy couples are choosing to include in their ceremony a voluntary covenant signing, giving all those in attendance the opportunity to sign on as witnesses and as those who hold them accountable to their vows.

There will always be pressure on a marriage from both inside and out that will contribute to its strengthening or weakening. The goal is to maximize the positive forces (again, both inside and out) and minimize the negative. While the outcome might not be as tangible as market prices, the benefits of a good marriage far outweigh any material tag that can be placed on it.

But I have to admit that this reality never seemed so clear as it is now after your market analogy. Thank you.

Also, I doubt there would be enough public information available for the market to work efficiently. Marriages are fairly private affairs, that can work (or fail) on many different levels. Given the complexity of the issue, and the relatively small pool of people who would have any knowledge of the couple, I think a market is the wrong approach.

The fair way would be that you put your money in escrow and the person who bets against you puts their money in escrow too, and then the whole sum is available to whoever wins in 3 years. And either of you could sell your side of the bet to whoever wants to buy it, for whatever price you can agree on. Then someone who’s sure the marriage will last could pay up to the whole sum discounted for inflation and such, while those who are less sure would pay less.

And the original wagers might be at whatever odds they could agree on. If the people who put up the money agree to 3:2 odds for 3 years, one of them might put up $6000 while the other puts up only $4000.

So there could be a series of official bets for different lengths of time. And I think it’s interesting that in a thinly-traded market there could be large inconsistencies in the prices. If the prices for a particular yes versus no trade combine to less than $10,000 discounted, one person could buy both of them and have a sure win. And that could happen with nobody noticing for a long time. More likely both sides would sell high, because the two gamblers disagree on the odds. A bet that the marriage would fail early might cost more than a bet that it would fail late, even though the odds are worse and the payout is the same, simply because nobody wanted to spend the money to make a better bet.

jeff gray,
wow! I’ve never heard of a system that had both doweries and bride-prices. I do hear stories in which systems seem to have trouble switching from one to the other (eg, India today). I imagine the sign of the transaction has a large cost and so the market is not liquid near zero, but not so large a cost as being the only one in town with the wrong sign.

Once a year in each village the maidens of age to marry were collected all together into one place; while the men stood round… Then a herald offered [the girls] one by one for sale. He began with the most beautiful. When she was sold for no small sum of money, he offered for sale the…next…in beauty. All of them were sold to be wives. The richest of the Babylonians who wished to wed bid against each other for the loveliest maidens, while the humbler wife-seekers, who were indifferent about beauty, took the more homely [girls] with marriage-portions [a subsidy].

The custom was that when the herald had [sold all of] the beautiful damsels, he should then call up the ugliest [ones] -a cripple, if there [was] one- and offer her…asking who would agree to take her [for] the smallest marriage-portion. And the man who offered to take the smallest sum had her assigned to him. The marriage-portions were furnished by the money paid for the beautiful damsels, and thus the fairer maidens portioned out the uglier. No one was allowed to give his daughter in marriage to the man of his choice…if, however, it turned out that they [man & wife] did not agree, [his] money might be paid back.

Herodotus, The History, George Rawlinson, trans., (New York: Dutton & Co., 1862)

Mobile, yes derivatives created by bundling marriage assets could be interesting to trade.

Shaun, don’t let the best be the enemy of the good.

Eliezer, yes, if it were cheap enough to create these markets they could be used to explore possible partners.

Rachel, interesting historical analogy.

John, good relevant quote.

Susan, these markets could as easily send good vibes as bad.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/12/05/051205crbo_books1