Economists do not think about money, production or inflation all the time. They may also think about marriage. In economics, we always talk about specialization and economies of scale, and they are encompassed in marriage. Here is an example:
Specialization is about people specializing in things that they are good at, or at the very least, focusing on their own tasks. The benefit of specialization is that it lowers opportunity costs. One of the possible ways of two people specializing after getting married is the one who earns more works more.
In this example, originally, A earns $10 more than B per hour, and the total weekly wage of two people is $1200. They each work 40 hours a week and spend 5 hours on "chores and errands". If they get married, live together and choose to specialize based on wage, then A can skip chores and errands, and work 5 more hours (assuming A's working hours are flexible), and B can work 5 fewer hours and do the chores and errands for the household.
Because of economies of scale, even in the absence of comparative advantage (i.e. B being better at doing chores and errands), there would be an addition of less than 5 hours when B does A's chores and errands. For example, we can imagine when A and B live separately and want to bake salmon, it would take 15 minutes separately and 30 minutes in total. But if they get married, start living together and B bakes salmon for both of them, it would only take 15 minutes in total, because the time for cooking salmon would not change, as long as the oven is not too small. In other words, the average cost of time for each salmon decreases to 7.5 minutes. If A is better at doing chores and errands than B, then we can see the time would even fall to less than 8 hours.
The total amount of time spent on both things and hourly wage do not change, but because of the wage difference and economies of scale, they can rearrange the use of their time and generate more income ($50 a week), and B can spare some extra leisure time (2 hr) for Netflix.
Economies of scale does not just stop right there. The average cost of living per person decreases as two people share a house, appliances, kitchenware and other things. You do not need a TV or an oven per person, right? If you live by yourself, you are paying for these things for yourself. If you get married and live with that person, you benefit from sharing resources that do not depreciate easily and are not rival (i.e. things of which the value or quantity decreases as one consumes it). Also you shop for grocery and daily necessities at a larger quantity which may give a better price.
Of course, the benefits from marriage are far more than just monetary and material resource-wise. Ideally, if you are in a good relationship with the right one, then you should be happier than when you were single. It is from the mental support, a sense of connection, sex, etc. Studies suggest that in general, married people tend to be happier than the unmarried, and it is more than correlation; it is causation. (There are some complications in it, though.)
In fact, you can argue that most of these things can be achieved by just living with your partner or even just friends, and it can be somewhat true. Epicurus, an ancient Greek philosopher, saw friendship as a main source of happiness and suggest that we should live in a community with our friends, not just see each other every once a while.
Wouldn't it be romantic if someone proposes to you and says, "let's increase our economies of scale and specialize?" Is it just me?
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