tfl: The Flatiron Life

On Monday night I stumbled across ABC’s show Ex-Wives Club just in time to watch Marla Maples, Shar Jackson, and Angie Everhart (I have no idea who Angie Everhart’s ex-husband is.) empower a divorcee to drill holes into her ex-husband’s boat, pour gasoline all over it, give it a good shove into the middle of a lake and blow it to bits. I’m not really familiar with the premise of the show, but my inner rational being immediately screamed out, “Don’t do it! Sell the boat!” Wouldn’t it be much more cathartic for her to unburden herself of the adultery boat in exchange for some coinage?

Then I remembered my Game Theory Professor saying that divorce is a Prisoners’ Dilemma. Having never experienced divorce, I didn’t quite follow the reasoning at the time, but now I think this is what it looks like:

There are items in any given marriage, which are clearly valued more by one party than by the other. For example, if Jacob and I got divorced, I would be lying if I said that I valued his bike as much as he does. While the bike would have some value for me, I would likely be willing to sell it for a much lower price than he would. If we both “play nice” we each ask for and receive the things we value the most and this gives us each the highest utility. However, there is no incentive for me to stick to this plan when I can “play mean” and ask for all of the things that I value most plus some of the things that he values most, sweetening the deal for me just a little. He has the same incentive; we both “play mean” and he and I both end up with some of the things we value a lot; we each lose some of the things we value a lot to the other party; and we each get some things that we value little, if at all. Life would have been great if we could have co-operated, but that’s just not a credible strategy. I know there are probably things that both parties value equally, and I’m not sure how those fit into the model, but the point is that divorce is not a successful way to move goods from lower to higher valued uses. Not to mention we’ve probably executed this exchange via lots of legal fees.

Hence, one of us is left with a boat that we’re willing to send to the middle of a lake and incinerate.