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Ben Stein's Diary
The Economics of Love
Arguments between husbands and wives are just part of the landscape.
Super Bowl Sunday
LONG AGO, my old
economics professor, the superteacher C. Lowell Harriss, started
our first class on Money and Banking by saying simply, “Economics
is about the allocation of scarce goods.” This perfect definition
has stood me in good stead all of these years, and especially
today.
Today I was able to put into practice my own observations about the allocation of the scarcest and most precious of all goods: love. Today was an opportunity for me, the economics teacher, to teach about my favorite subject, the economics of love.
A very close relative, a young man married about four years now to a simply stunningly beautiful young woman, came down to our home in Rancho Mirage to watch the Super Bowl with me. I was happy to see him. He knows sports incomparably better than I do, knows all rules and practices, knows all about the players and coaches—in a word, just knows the subject cold. I am a fan. I am especially a fan of the Ravens because I am a native Marylander. But my very close relative, whom I will call T., knows the whole story, while I know bits and pieces. So again, on Sunday, as I drove home from my 12-step meeting, I was excited to see T. and to watch the game with him at a Super Bowl event at our beautiful club, Morningside.
However, when I walked in the door of our home, I beheld an agitated and worked-up T., frantically upset about a contretemps he had had that morning with his wife. According to him, she had responded to a question about why she was taking a shower in the morning instead of at night with a comment that harshly accused him of serious mental flaws.
He was, again, just agitated beyond words.
I told him that my interpretation of his wife’s words was exactly the opposite: she was merely defending herself against his seeming criticism and not mocking him at all. She was just making a joke about how much she liked to take showers.
He said he didn’t believe it. He was still hysterical.
However, football is football. And this was a very big game. We went off to the Super Bowl party and he started to slam down vodka drinks at a rate I have rarely seen. This calmed him remarkably, as did watching the game.
I have often thought to myself that the greatest pro–mental health program in the nation, maybe in the world, is the television broadcasting of top-notch sporting events. Even the most powerful and insightful therapist cannot provide the release from tension and the escape from anxiety that watching sports does for most men and some women. All of those sports shows probably keep tens of millions of American men from serious mischief against themselves or others. There is something powerfully liberating and empowering about watching athletes do something magnificently well.
My old Pop used to listen to the Washington Senators—outside, in the dark, on Caroline Avenue in Silver Spring, in, say, 1949, on a Silvertone (Sears Roebuck) radio with an extension cord. He called it “the great American anodyne.” Now, it’s an incomparably bigger, better phenomenon, and I suspect it takes away far more pain.
Very importantly, no one watches a football game and then says, “Hey, I want to kill people.” Viewers watch and then want to watch another game. But the experience is not like playing a multi-player shoot-’em-up where the experience might make the player want to shoot someone in real life.
So I love sports on TV and consider it a genuine national miracle. God bless the NBA and the NFL and MLB, say I. Also the NCAA. They are mass-producing mental health. And this was a great game, with my beloved Ravens racing to an early lead, and then a seesaw struggle after the lights went out.
BACK TO T. He kept telling me he wanted me to call his wife and say something drastic that would upset her and make her apologize. And so, I gave him this little speech:
“My boy, arguments between husbands and wives, especially young husbands and wives, are just a part of the landscape. They are inevitable. When married couples are young, they have not yet learned that the real asset in their lives is not their individual ego or pride. The real asset is the marriage itself.
“The idea that you in some way ‘win’ if you can bully or con your wife into apologizing is appealing but wrong. She will resent you for making her apologize for something she didn’t do wrong, and it will be a burr that will pop up somewhere else in the saddle of the marriage.
About the Author
Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He writes “Ben Stein’s Diary” for every issue of The American Spectator.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (15) | Leave a comment
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Jack in Wi| 4.1.13 @ 7:24AM
Love and peace in a marriage is like love and peace in the world. It makes life worth living. Shalom.
PolishKnight| 4.1.13 @ 9:48AM
Sad to say, Ben's advise is well meant but wrong. Women do not want men who put up with crap from them in other to keep the marriage going. If a man can't stand up to his wife, that leads the woman to ask herself whether he'll be able to stand up in other areas (will he be able to properly discipline his children? Can he be honest with her when she needs it?)
Of course, this conflicts with most women's strong desire to have men do what she demands and say what she wants to hear.
The guy's primary mistake is to drag Ben into the situation as mediator. It's none of his business.
Regarding Nixon: He passed the marriage penalty which has hurt families. Jessie Jackson? I don't even need to say anything on this forum about his credibility.
C. Vernon Crisler | 4.1.13 @ 10:29AM
Never understimate the value of a cooling off period.
Then, when you are calm, and not hysterically angry, and the subject is still important to you, tell your spouse that his or her words hurt you.
Talk it out. But only when you're calm. People who know each other, especially husband and wife, know how to push each other's buttons.
I agree that going around apologizing, even though you don't have anything to apologize for, is counterproductive. Clinton and Obama have shown us that when they go around apologizing for America's non-mistakes.
Stilton A. Cheese| 4.1.13 @ 12:16PM
After you've been happily married as long as I have been, you start looking over your shoulder for the reaper. Not everyday, but he intrudes when he's not wanted, in tender moments, and good times.
pie-eyed piper| 4.1.13 @ 1:18PM
I think that if you have a compatible woman, one that makes you happy, she's worth doing whatever it takes to keep her. Don't beat her up mentally, and of course never touch her in anger physically, since you're a gentleman--pleasant fantasies of strangling her from time to time (which you never mention) are all you get--but consider also whether you are someone who it's pleasant to be around yourself. It may be that you are not, so fix it.
You don't need one of these "stunningly beautiful women" that Ben Stein is always rhapsodizing about to be happy, but if you have got one, count your blessings. But also be aware that she won't stay that way.
After decades of living with you, she may not be the most beautiful one around anymore, but you probably aren't much to look at yourself by then, and there is more to a happy married life than beauty, much more. Remember the immortal words of Humphrey Bogart: "All dames look alike with their makeup off."
If you don't believe him, Google the name of a famous model or actress, along with the words "without makeup," and see just how right he was.
PolishKnight| 4.1.13 @ 2:11PM
Surprisingly, French women are big into the no-makeup regime. One of them was on a WSP tournament and I thought she was rather "handsome" and lovely in her own right without needing to cake it on.
Regarding hitting one's spouse: I think that DV should be wrong, period. It's not "cute" when a woman slaps a man, it just shows she's a tramp. Adults should act like adults. If a child acts badly, punish them by withholding privileges. My friend to this day still shudders at the thought of stealing something after his father caught him shoplifting and threw away his video games.
Peppermint Tea | 4.1.13 @ 1:19PM
Ben, I think you missed the point. Here's some advice to T.:
When you come upon a woman in the shower, who the hell cares what she says.
gene| 4.1.13 @ 2:49PM
AAAAA-Men
pie-eyed piper| 4.1.13 @ 1:21PM
(continued): You can look at the occasional babe and fantasize (what man doesn't?) but remember that the grass that is always greener is probably only astroturf, and if you were to live with that dish you'd soon find out that she's just as repulsive looking getting up in the morning as what you've already got, and possibly a shrew to boot. And all those babes in the magazines and on the web that have given you pause have been photoshopped, bet on it. They don't look like that for real.
Which brings to mind these "celebrity" women who spend fortunes on plastic surgery trying to keep up the appearances of youth, and who end up looking like B-movie horrors, much worse than your wife looks like after 40 years of marriage with you.
(Which reminds me, for some reason, that a liposuction surgeon is a someone who often finds himself at loose ends).
Occam's Tool| 4.1.13 @ 1:41PM
Some advice:
1) Sports broadcasting sometimes DOES lead to violence. Check out the riots that occur in major cities after championships.
2) Whe you marry a woman, you are essentially picking someone to run your life for you. Good women run their men to the limits of the man's ability to be run. 99% of the time she should be correct and you should be able to handle that, or you picked the wrong woman.
1% of the time you should put your foot down carefully. This lets her know that you are still a man, and the infrequency of it should make her take it seriously.
3) You should find something you can do that she doesn't want you doing but which isn't that major of an issue, and do it. This also reminds her of your manhood, and keeps her from being bored, as it gives her something to fix. Me, I buy textbooks she doesn't understand why I need.
The shower situation was stupid. A real man would have taken off his clothes and joined her.
Occam's Tool| 4.1.13 @ 1:47PM
And then, after plowing her in the shower, reminded her that if she's going to take a shower in the morning that these things might happen, so she may wish to consider confining her showering to bedtime.
Married 18 years, and my wife still treats me like the guy in the Hi-Karate commercial.
stop telling lies| 4.1.13 @ 1:47PM
" I have often thought to myself that the greatest pro–mental health program in the nation, maybe in the world, is the television broadcasting of top-notch sporting events. "
" They are mass-producing mental health."
I stopped reading right here. What television sports produces is the glorification of overpaid, self-indulgent individuals to the point of idolatry.
As for relationships, recognize that it isn't all about you.
cicero| 4.1.13 @ 2:12PM
Ben, the problem with your young man isn't now, it was then. I have been following your writings ever since you started writing about your son. Thanks to your excusing everything he did, and indullging everything he wanted, you could just about predict that he would grow into a perfectly selfish creep. I feel sorry for that young woman. What was she thinking?
But now that you are here, and it is too late to remedy the damage, good luck, dad. Maybe she will make a man of him.
PolishKnight| 4.1.13 @ 4:21PM
Cicero, good spot! It didn't occur to me until I read it that it probably is his son. That being said, it probably is better for him to be selfish because it's an essential survival skill in this day and age where traditional go-down-with-the-ship chivalrous men are treated as disposable by modern women. In the old days, a "lady" would watch what she said.
Regarding apologizing unnecessarily: I have rarely been stingy with them with my wife. If I said something that hurt her, even accidentally or something trivial, I didn't view it as a problem to make amends. By the same token, when she annoys me beyond the breaking point, I tell her off when needed and the results were not pretty. But after the 10th walkaway/silent treatment and she is normal about 2 hours later, that tactic loses credibility.
All that said, the kid is probably going the right path: If she annoys him, he should get upset and even stay upset. Once he starts caving in and being a "nice guy", they start looking for lawyers.
Weygand| 4.1.13 @ 10:44PM
What couple, especially married ones, doesn't exchange brutally frank observations about their SOs approach to this that and the other? My wife and I have been married for 8 years and together for 14 and fights (obviously not physical) are par for the course.