Quoting "James C.W. Ahiakpor" <[log in to unmask]>:  
> As Becker well puts it: "The incentive to separate is greater ... the  
> more convinced a person becomes that the marriage was a 'mistake.'  This  
> conviction could result from additional information about one's mate or  
> other potential mates.  (Some 'search' goes on, perhaps subconsciously  
> even while one is married!)  If the 'mistake' is considered large enough  
> to outweigh the loss in marriage-specific capital, separation and  
> perhaps divorce will follow."  
  
> Becker concludes his article with a reference to "the value of our  
> economic approach in understanding marital patterns."  He preaches  
> nothing, but seeks to explain.  I think his work is more enlightening  
> than the likes of Peter Stillman are inclined to accord him.  
  
  
Dear James,  
I think that here you demonstrate very well why economics of the neoclassical  
type is repudiated by feminists (including MEN like me). Their (our) objection  
is exactly to this kind of analysis that treats the most intimate emotions,  
relations, and attachments (including religion, addiction etc.) as the outcome  
of some kind of (actual, approximate or virtual) calculus of free agents. The  
most important things for at least some people in love (friendship,  
religiosity, baseball etc.) is the bracketing off self-interested calculation.  
  
I don't see it as a gender related issue, but it is hard to deny that in Western  
culture we find more men who behave in love as they behave in business, and  
even scholars who glorify it as a virtue (mostly in economics, where women are  
so appalingly few). It is easy to explain all kinds of behavior using this  
machinery but I doubt that it adds much to the understanding of common human  
and social problems related to the family. Perhaps it can throw light on some  
specific phenomena, but when a whole discipline is using ONLY this perspective,  
I think it fails to satisfy the needs and interests of many consistuencies,  
includin women, people of color, Third-World countries and so forth.  
  
Finally, it is not only a question of explaining reality but also of  
CONSTITUTING reality. Economic theory (the neoclassical type) takes people as  
given; economics enter into the game as information that help agents maximize  
their interests. Post-structural theories (including feminists and many other  
versions) claim that people are constituted by what they read, hear and learn.  
If the world is governed by economists, economic theory will be realistic not  
because it explains reality better but because people start to behave as they  
are imagined by the economists. Of course, being a hard-core economist, you  
probably don't believe this theory (although it is supported by a great deal of  
evidence) but at least one should be aware of this argument.  
  
Sincerely,  
  
Yuval P. Yonay  
  
P.S. Since you educated me and sent me to read Dixon, let me respond in kind and  
suggest you read Albert Otto Hirschman, 1984, "Against Parsimony: Three Ways of  
Complicating Some Categories of Economic Discourse." American Economic Review  
74(2): 89-96.