Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/25185 
Year of Publication: 
2007
Series/Report no.: 
SFB 649 Discussion Paper No. 2007,013
Publisher: 
Humboldt University of Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649 - Economic Risk, Berlin
Abstract: 
This paper provides a first microeconomic foundation for the institution of marriage. Based on a model of reproduction, mating, and parental investment in children, we argue that marriage serves the purpose of attenuating the risk of mating market failure that arises from incomplete information on individual paternity. Raising the costs of mating to individuals, marriage circumscribes female infidelity and mate poaching among men, which reduces average levels of paternal uncertainty in society. A direct gain in male utility, the latter induces men to invest more in their putative offspring, a fact that benefits women because of the public good nature of children. Able to realize Pareto improvements, marriage as an institution is hence explained as the result of a societal consensus on the need to organize and structure mating behavior and reproduction in society for the benefit of paternal certainty and biparental investment in offspring.
Subjects: 
Marriage
Mating
Paternal Uncertainty
Parental Investment
JEL: 
D10
J12
J13
D02
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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