Abstract
In this paper, we study a game model of marital cheating. The husband is the cheater and the wife is faithful. The husband’s cheating is either open or surreptitious. The wife can either ignore the cheating or catch her husband in the act of cheating. We first express the game of interest in matrix form. Second, we determine the best response functions of the two players. Third, we show that there exists a unique mixed-strategy Nash equilibrium in the game. Finally, we demonstrate the nexus between our marital cheating game and the prominent Matching Pennies game.
Highlights
PreliminariesThe departed American actor and comedian Rodney Dangerfield said “My marriage is on the rocks again, yeah, my wife broke up with her boyfriend.” The wit notwithstanding, several writers such as Ali [1], Parker-Pope [2], and Luo et al [3] have pointed out that with the passage of time, the phenomenon of cheating in a marriage has become more commonplace in the United States
In a humorous retort, the departed American actor and comedian Rodney Dangerfield said “My marriage is on the rocks again, yeah, my wife broke up with her boyfriend.” The wit notwithstanding, several writers such as Ali [1], Parker-Pope [2], and Luo et al [3] have pointed out that with the passage of time, the phenomenon of cheating in a marriage has become more commonplace in the United States.We can think of the phenomenon of marital cheating as a love for one kind of variety in one’s life
In addition to the findings discussed by Ali [1], Parker-Pope [2] and Luo et al [3], research reviewed by Buss and Shackelford [6] demonstrates that between 30 and 60 percent of all married persons in the United States will engage in cheating at some point in their marriages
Summary
The departed American actor and comedian Rodney Dangerfield said “My marriage is on the rocks again, yeah, my wife broke up with her boyfriend.” The wit notwithstanding, several writers such as Ali [1], Parker-Pope [2], and Luo et al [3] have pointed out that with the passage of time, the phenomenon of cheating in a marriage has become more commonplace in the United States. It is helpful to recall that economists have studied a love for variety and the impact that this love has on consumer welfare in considerable detail at least since the seminal work of Dixit and Stiglitz [4]. In this regard, Fair [5] has contended that a love for variety can provide a basis for the existence of extramarital affairs or cheating in a marriage and it is this cheating activity that we analyze in the present paper. We begin by reviewing the extant literature on this subject
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