Optimal dynamic path of effort on marriage: differences between arranged and love marriages

Abstract

People benefit from good marriages. Thus, everyone is willing to put effort into marriage to improve the quality of marriage. However, effort is costly. Then everyone faces the same question: how much effort should I put into marriage? A dynamic optimal control model is used in trying to answer this question. The study shows that for arranged marriages that start with little love, an agent should devote a great deal of effort to marriage in the very beginning, and then reduce the effort until a steady state level. However, for love marriages that start with deep love, there is no need for an agent to devote as much effort as in the steady state. The agent should start to put low effort on marriage, high effort on other activities, and continuously increase the effort on marriage up to the steady state level.