Dollars and Sex (21 page)

So the institutional change has been made possible because many people have changed their beliefs about same-sex marriage and not just because the less-accepting older generation has been replaced with a more-accepting younger generation. As it turns out, though, acceptance is not uniformly distributed over groups of individuals; in fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

Probably the most important element of this research is that rather than observing that opinions are converging in favor of equal marriage rights, in reality individual communities are diverging in terms of their opinions. So, for example, people who are white have become more accepting of same-sex marriage over time, while the opinion of the black community has remained almost unchanged (71 percent opposed same-sex marriage in 1988, compared with 69 percent in 2006). Democrats have become more accepting relative to Republicans, and non-evangelical Christians have changed their opinions by a greater percentage than have evangelical Protestants.

Baunach argues that the reason for the growing divide is that people in some groups have come to accept that the legalization of same-sex marriage is about equal rights, rather than about morality, while people in other groups have not.

I wonder, though, if the real issue is that the individuals in the more-accepting groups are more likely to have had an opportunity to observe marriages between people of the same gender firsthand. Not only was that the experience in my family, but seemingly the experience of President Barack Obama's family as well. The record shows that it is much harder to be opposed to same-sex marriage when you see your neighbors, your colleagues, or your family members happily united.

Just as an aside, you might try to use the Pareto efficiency test to see if allowing same-sex marriage makes anyone better off at the expense of making others worse off. If they have not, and I would argue that no one is made worse off in any measurable sense when people of the same gender are allowed to marry, then changing those laws has to be a welfare improvement according to that criterion.

FINAL WORDS

Marriage is a fine institution, and one that is better understood when viewed through an economist's lens. What both these examples, monogamy/polygyny and same-sex marriage, illustrate is that marriage institutions can change over time and that economic factors play an important role in their evolution. Institutions are, by definition, external to the beliefs of the individual whose behavior they govern because, in theory at least, they represent the beliefs of the collective rather than that of a few individuals within the collective. The beliefs of the collective themselves are, in turn, shaped by the nature of the economy in which we live.

Societies in largely industrialized nations have rejected polygamy as a marriage institution because in those economies mental ability is highly valued in the labor force. Thus, men prefer to have fewer, educated, children over having many, less-educated, children. Since monogamy helps them achieve that goal, the collective has come to adopt the view that monogamous marriage is preferred to polygamous marriage.

More recently, in many of those same industrialized countries, the belief in equal marriage rights for same-sex couples has led to a change in marriage institutions. Acknowledging the importance of those rights is
currently shaping public opinion, and that change in opinion has made it possible for the institution of marriage to change as well.

The evolution of the institution of marriage, in the legal sense, is not necessarily determined by public opinion in the short run but rather by the opinion of those who have the power to set policy. If the polygyny story teaches us anything, though, it is this: unless policy makers have the power to change public opinion, in the long run, democratic societies (and as we have seen, even authoritarian societies) will ultimately have institutions that reflect the beliefs of the majority, regardless of the personal preferences of those in power.

I said that Bill Gates would probably have only one wife even if the laws permitted him to have two because the economic conditions have given his wife, Melinda, sufficient bargaining power within their marriage that she can insist on a monogamous arrangement. These same conditions that have made the need for anti-polygamy laws irrelevant to most couples in industrialized nations have led to dramatic changes in the way in which couples organize their relationships. Economics has played a big role in shaping the modern family.

MARRIAGE IS ALL ABOUT COMPROMISE

Let me start with a story that does a much better job than I might in introducing the material we will discuss in this chapter. It is the continuation of the story of Jane that I promised you earlier, and it tells of the marriage that she entered into in the year after she left her life of post-high school debauchery. You already know how well that marriage worked out, since in the third part of her life she is again unmarried. But while she might not have found her Prince Charming, her not-so-happy-ever-after is an apt description of how marriage is evolving as a result of some powerful economic forces.

Without a university degree or gainful employment, Jane soon discovered that her marriage market deficiencies in terms of her education levels and earning potential were more than compensated for by her youthfulness; at the tender age of 19, she began living with a man who was nine years her senior and well equipped to provide her with much-needed stability. This stability came at a cost, however, as she had to move halfway around the world to live with a relative stranger, having only met him twice before making that decision.

Jane brought youth to the relationship and a willingness to start a new life but was forced to forgo the opportunity to have a husband of similar age who lived in the home country she loved. Her husband, John, brought education and income but was forced to forgo having a wife with similar education and income levels to his own. Neither Jane nor John got what they wanted, but for this particular stage of their lives, they got what they needed.

Now Jane, having moved all the way around the world to live with John, was deeply unhappy. Besides being lonely and isolated, she found herself in a relationship in which, because of both her inability to contribute to the household income and her inferior age, she had no bargaining power. Decisions that other couples would have made together, John made alone and independently of Jane's wishes. Where they lived, whether or not they had children (and how many), who they were friends with, how they divided the household chores, and when they did, and did not, have sex were all decisions made by John alone.

To make matters worse, economic conditions were poor, and, despite his education, John was incapable of keeping a job for more than a year at a time. In five years, John and Jane moved nine times, five times to different cities (including a move back to Jane's home country), all in pursuit of employment opportunities for John. The moves meant Jane was constantly underemployed, continually isolated, and unable to gain any ground on decision making within her relationship. In fact, her say in household decisions eroded over the years as a new baby and John's repeated job losses put the family in a more and more desperate financial situation.

Jane's big break came after one particularly long spell of unemployment in which John had been out of work for more than a year. He announced that he was returning to university to complete a graduate degree in the hope of improving his employability. He decided that in order to pay for the additional education, Jane would find a job and work full time. But twenty months of John's unemployment, and the fact they had been living with Jane's parents, had shifted the balance of power in their relationship, and against John's wishes, Jane decided to take a stand. She applied, and was accepted, to earn a bachelor's degree in the same university as John.