Strictly speaking we don’t like to think about our relationships as property rights in other people.  Moreover, thinking in this way will lead to some very real lessons in how distorted expectations can become.  I was talking with a friend today about how jealousy, even if it had evolutionary reasons for existing in the status quo, has nothing much to offer the sophisticated individualist.  This willingness to think of almost any experience through the lens of the economics disipline has been a love affair with frustration.  We know economic models do not arrive at truth, but we still have to place experience within them and see if there is a coherent idea which will parsimoniously render.  The digestion of relationships seems more obviously out of place than most, so it is that much more compelling.

By the term individualist let me first tell you what I mean.  This is the person who is rational in the way that he constrains his self-interest.  It is this expectation which we can impose not only on ourselves, but also on others.  I know that I will not seek to maximize my pleasure without first learning what the costs will be, and I prefer these costs to be foreseeable, ceteris paribus.  In a relationship, monogamy has sprung up to minimize all sort of cost associated with our lives as sexual creatures (expectations, smoothing, aging).  Our expectations of belonging, while very rational, come from a part of our existence which is not individualistic.  I am compelled by the way that humans are born dependant.  No baby can live without the constant attention of other humans.  The mere presence of exposure is enough to kill a newborn.  So, it follows that there is a period of time in which we exist where we are dependant on others.  The individualist perhaps is more likely to tell you that this ends at the age of maturity.  We can think of a hermit, an example of a real case of an individual existing in isolation.

It is this that we mean by individual however, when we use this term we are often speaking of some characteristics of man apart from the group.  In this way individualism is most easily defendable.  There are some small perceived problems with this view.  The benefits which occur to the individual are desired by others because; in some way they are the product of that man’s effort, who is entirely dependant on his fellow-man for moral support.  In this abstract sense communism has spent a great deal of time explaining why private ownership is a violation of this relationship (this seems to be only a first approximation of the problem however).

Between two people jealousy is a similar violation of this relationship.  It is ignoring the investment other people have made in you, by benefiting from people who have not put in the same time, effort, display, or other sunk cost.  The same way that a child no longer depends on a parent, the lover can feel like there is nothing more to be gained from continuing a relationship.  The individualist (in his pejorative worst case) will say that an adult has nothing to owe the parents for the raising of his child-dependant self.  Somehow this lacks a reciprocity which cannot be easily expressed.  It is curious that the reciprocity is more focused on raising your own children, than paying the parents back for what they have given you.  In this way Dawkin’s “Selfish Gene” seems to be taking care of itself very well.  This explanation lacks tractability in fully appreciating the connection we all have to one another.  For example, those that are unable, or unwilling to have kids of their own often seek to repay this investment with raising other people’s children.  This expands our search for the determinants of reciprocity.  Moreover, what how can we begin to understand the compulsion of individuals to one another in monogamous relationships.

We have titles in our culture for people that enter into certain relationships.  There is no clear definition for when one passes from one stage of the relationship to another, but there are some culturally significant processes.  “Girlfriend” comes before “fiancé” which precedes “wife.”  All of these are distinct from the colloquial term “Baby-momma.”  In a way however they express ownership.  The first three in a purely theoretical sense and the last in a tangible sense more justly thought of in terms of property rights (mixing of the person with an outcome – new person).  This relationship also incorporates the continued line of reciprocity needed for the survival of the human race.  There is nothing distinct from the two series of terms aside from this theoretical and tangible paradigm.  A “baby-daddy” does nothing dissimilar from a “Husband.”  But the terms of approximation seek to do something in a more social context.  Calling someone my “girlfriend” imparts a sense of ownership, even if it only does so implicitly.  I would feel justified in feeling aggressive if someone made unappreciated sexual advances towards my “girlfriend” most likely citing this as my justification for feeling protective.  “My fiancé” is traditionally going to wear a ring, which at least attempts to communicate that she is no longer seriously evaluating competitive offers for sexual advances.  Am I then justified in feeling threatened personally when someone violates this signal?  Do I have justifiable reasons for asserting property rights, in this case referred to as jealousy?

The new entity now exhibits its own jealousness.  To not be jealous in the face of threats to the survival of this new entity is akin to that entity failing to be rationally self-interested.  I suspect that thinking of relationships as if they were individuals is problematic, but they have the reciprocity aspect which I have laid out already concerning all human relationships.  They exist in harmony with others.  As a kid I found it difficult to understand my parents as individuals, they always sought to hand down rules from this third party “Parent” perspective, which was a corporate creation of their making.  At some level this assisted them in making hard decisions.  This seems to be a description of some puppet, but I feel it accurately describes the mechanism as the best justification of monogamy.   

As an individualist, I am repulsed by the idea that someone could own part of me.  It strikes me however that this is precisely the case with relationships, which is the willing submission to this ownership.  An economist might say that no one willingly submits to be the slave of a company by accepting a wage, so my analogy is false, but consider how this is different.  I trade limited property rights (exclusion of competition) with another person to be paid in kind.  This attempts to render a third legal identity existing as a partial derivative of the two individuals.  In forming this corporate entity, the property rights now change.

The new entity now exhibits its own jealousness.  To not be jealous in the face of threats to the survival of this new entity is akin to that entity failing to be rationally self-interested.  I suspect that thinking of relationships as if they were individuals is problematic, but they have the reciprocity aspect which I have laid out already concerning all human relationships.  They exist in harmony with others.  As a kid I found it difficult to understand my parents as individuals, they always sought to hand down rules from this third party “Parent” perspective, which was a corporate creation of their making.  At some level this assisted them in making hard decisions.  This seems to be a description of some puppet, but I feel it accurately describes the mechanism as the best justification of monogamy.