Making Costs Visible

The story

In 1838, before he proposed to his cousin Emma Wedgwood, Charles Darwin worked the decision out on paper. He headed two columns “Marry” and “Not Marry,” and across the top of the page he wrote “This is the Question.” Under Marry he put a “constant companion” and “friend in old age,” children, and a home, and judged it “better than a dog anyhow.” Under Not Marry he put the freedom to go where he liked, the conversation of clever men, and the time and money he would keep for his work. He closed the note by writing Marry three times, followed by Q.E.D., and married Emma in January 1839.

How we see it through leadership economics

Darwin’s two columns are a ledger of opportunity cost, which is the basic move in any Allocation decision. The cost of a choice is the best alternative you give up in order to have it, so each of his columns is also the price of the other. The freedom to go where he liked and the conversation of clever men were what marrying would cost him. A constant companion, a friend in old age, and children were what not marrying would cost him.

The second direction is the harder one to see. Time and freedom are easy to count as things already in hand, and marrying looks like the thing that would take them away. Written the other way, the freedom is what he would be buying, and the price is a companion in old age and children.

We hear the same thing today, usually from one side only. People say that marriage may not be worth it, or that children are too much work. Both are honest statements about what those choices cost. What we rarely hear is the cost on the other side, and it is just as real. The years of freedom are paid for by not having a family to grow old with. Darwin’s advantage was that he wrote down both columns, so he was comparing two real lives instead of weighing one against nothing.

A quote we’re thinking about

To make any one of them actual, the rest must more or less be suppressed.

William James, “The Principles of Psychology”