A quick choice leaves less room for the thought that a better option was missed

The argument

Those who offer this explanation argue that part of what wears on a marriage is not the partner but the alternatives. Where a person has spent years comparing candidates, the habit of comparison does not switch off at the wedding. Every disappointment afterwards invites the same mental operation that preceded the choice: a ranking against others, including others never met. On this account the difficulty is structural rather than a failure of character, and it grows with the number of options the chooser believes they had. Proponents argue that a decision reached without prolonged deliberation starves that habit of fuel. Where the choice was made quickly, there is no long list of rejected candidates to revisit and no accumulated sense of having conducted a search that might have gone better. The question of whether one chose correctly has less to work with. They add that a quick decision is also harder to experience as one's own achievement or one's own error, which cuts both ways but reduces the particular weight of self reproach that follows a long and deliberate selection that disappoints. Holders of this explanation are usually careful to distinguish it from a claim that deliberation is bad in general. Their claim is narrower: that the value of deliberation lies in finding a good match, that its cost is a durable habit of comparison, and that for a relationship meant to last decades the cost can outrun the benefit. What the relationship then runs on, they argue, is attention to the person actually present rather than to the place that person occupies in a ranking, and a decision made without extended comparison starts the couple in that frame rather than requiring them to reach it later.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics question the premise that the comparison is absent rather than merely displaced. Where a match is arranged, the comparing may be done by others and may be resented more rather than less, and the thought that a better option was missed can attach to the arrangement itself. They also argue that the explanation measures the wrong thing: a marriage that endures because the alternatives are hard to picture is not thereby a good marriage, and endurance may reflect the cost of leaving rather than the quality of the bond. Several add that the explanation treats speed as the active ingredient when consent, family support and shared expectations are more plausible candidates.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The habit of comparison may be a feature of the person and the surrounding culture rather than a residue of the selection process, in which case it persists either way. [Rejecting P3] The material for comparison need not be one's own rejected candidates, since an imagined alternative or the knowledge that others chose on one's behalf can serve as well. [Rejecting C] Lower exposure to comparison would explain fewer departures without explaining greater satisfaction, so the conclusion does not establish that such marriages go better.