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Surprisingly, this is the conclusion not of a psychological survey, but the outcome of mathematical modelling combined with the economic theory of the firm.
In “Love and Addiction: The Importance of Commitment”, published by Economic Research Southern Africa (ERSA), Steven Koch applies techniques usually reserved for drier topics such as price setting and the supply of goods to examine the likely path that love follows in a relationship.
Working on the assumption that love is addictive, Koch finds a startling difference between committed and uncommitted couples as far as the love outcome goes.
“The difference, the commitment to provide love, leads to a growing love relationship for some, while a lack of commitment amongst cohabitants leads to opportunistic, using behaviour amongst partners,” Koch says.
He uses cohabiting partnerships to represent uncommitted relationships, and marriage to represent committed relationships, but stresses that these are terms to capture the level of commitment within a relationship, and not necessarily the legal component of the relationship.
“Whether the commitment is legal, social or reputational does not matter; only the enforceability of the commitment matters.”
Koch’s model shows that those who choose, from the outset, to live together without committing to marriage, may not be able to regain the commitment necessary to make an actual marriage work at a later stage in their relationship.
He cites empirical surveys which show that couples who opt to cohabit viewed this as a trial for marriage. Other surveys conclude that cohabiting couples who do eventually marry are more likely to divorce than other couples.
Koch’s reasoning is that members of a cohabiting relationship are aware of the risk of being used by their partner and therefore tend to underinvest in their relationships.
“Because there is less love without commitment than with commitment, cohabiting partners may be less successful marriage partners than those whose partnership was initially based on a commitment, e.g. marriage.”
Apart from the finding that love will flourish in the context of commitment, Koch argues that love within a committed relationship will exceed love in a non-committed match.
Koch laments the implementation of no-fault divorce laws, which, he says, may have weakened the commitment built into marriage. It may be that the removal of penalties for divorcing will increase cheating and using behaviour within marriage, he says. Source: http://www.moneyweb.co.za/mw/view/mw/en/page1639?oid=173210&sn=Detail
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