In standard cross-sectional wage regressions, married men appear to earn 10 to 20 percent more than comparable never-married men. One proposed explanation for this male marriage premium is that men may be selected into marriage on the basis of characteristics valued by employers as well as by spouses or because they earn high wages. This paper examines the selection hypothesis using a “natural ...

Data from a longitudinal study were used to examine differences among couples that cohabited before engagement, after engagement, or not until marriage. Survey data and objectively coded couple interaction data were collected for 136 couples (272 individuals) after engagement (but before marriage) and 10 months into marriage. At both time points, the before-engagement cohabiters (59 couples) ha...

In this paper, I examine what happened to different-sex marriage in the Netherlands after two laws that introduced registered partnership (an institution almost identical to marriage) in 1998 and same-sex marriage in 2001. I first construct a synthetic control for the Netherlands using OECD data for 1988–2005 and find that neither law had significant effects on either the overall or different-s...

Marriage is an intensely practical matter. As a result, the subject of marriage is commonly taken up in practical teaching or in counselling rather than in a study of biblical doctrine. We have a strong biblical basis for this. In Paul’s letters, the subject of marriage in taken up in the practical rather than doctrinal sections of his letters. In this study, we will look at marriage from a doc...

In December 2005, an appeals court in New York State ruled “that the state constitution does not require New York to treat gay couples the same as heterosexual couples in marriage licensing” (Keen 11). The ongoing gay marriage debate has set the stage for many lesbians, gays, and queers to ask what marriage equality really means for the gay movement. According to Michael Warner in the book The ...

The distribution of age at first marriage shows well-known strong regularities across many countries and recent historical periods. We accounted for these patterns by developing agent-based models that simulate the aggregate behavior of individuals who are searching for marriage partners. Past models assumed fully rational agents with complete knowledge of the marriage market; our simulated age...

This paper studies pre-marital parental investments in their children’s wealth where spousal wealth is a public good in marriage. By investing in their children’s wealth, parents increase the wealth of their children and the quality of the spouses that their children can marry. In large marriage markets, the hedonic return to investment internalizes all the external benefits of pre-marital inve...

The varieties of marriage described by Manu and accepted by Vatsyayana are mentioned. The qualities of the bride and bridegroom for an ideal marriage are enumerated by Vatsyayana. The Shastraic view of the same along with the valid conditions of a Hindu Marriage under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 are contrasted. The role of the virtuous wife in house-keeping and looking after the husband, accor...