Quoting Russ Roberts, discussing Charles Darwin's musings about this topic: "So, the Darwin thing is a somewhat--well, a number of thoughtful people have writt

Quoting Russ Roberts, discussing Charles Darwin's musings about this topic: "So, the Darwin thing is a somewhat--well, a number of thoughtful people have written about it, including Agnes Callard and others. We have access to Darwin's journal. You can get online and you can look at Darwin's own handwriting in his journal. And, he's trying to decide whether to get married. He's 29 years old and he makes a list of pros and cons. And, he's smart enough to know that there's a lot at stake for him because he is going to have a chance to be a serious scientist. I don't know if he knew he had a chance to be one of the top two or three scientists of all time, but he's worried about how marriage might bite into his productivity as a researcher. And, he's worried about whether he is going to have to go visit his wife's relatives a lot. He's worried she might not like London, so he's going to be stuck out the countryside. He's worried he's going to have to spend time with her or the kids instead of his work. And, he makes a list of the pros and the cons and--unbelievably embarrassing list in 2022--one of the pros is female chitchat, and at one point: There's someone to come home to, parentheses, 'better than a dog anyway'. So, it's a little bit awkward. He'd be canceled. He may still be canceled when my book comes out, but let's take him as a man of his time for a moment. Anyway, he makes this list. And, what I thought about when I looked at it was--and by the way, sorry, important point: the negatives way outweigh the positives. And, they're bigger. It's pretty clear that he shouldn't get married if he's going to make a rational choice based on his list. That kind of bothers him. And so, at one point he comes back to the list and he has this stream of consciousness, and he says, 'Ahhh, got to be in a dingy apartment by myself, late in life, no one to talk to, no kids--ehhh, I'm going to get married." And he wrote on his journal... MARRY MARRY MARRY Q.E.D. Darwin's journal: https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/tags/about-darwin/family-life/darwin-marriage https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/tags/about-darwin/family-lif... https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/tags/about-darwin/family-life/darwin-marriage https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/tags/about-darwin/family-lif...