Economic analysis of decision-making and human and Islamic values in choosing a spouse

Abstract

Gary Becker, as the creator of family economics, believes that humans maximize their utility in all their behaviors based on a set of stable preferences and an optimal amount of information. If it is shown that people do not behave based on the maximization of utility in some areas of their lives, the efficiency of the economic approach in their analysis will be doubted. This article introduces decision-making theories and examines the appropriateness of each of them regarding family choices according to its specific characteristics. This research uses analytical-descriptive method to explain how human and Islamic values affect family decisions. This study uses the content analysis of verses and narrations and its comparison with the famous inferences of Shia jurists to understand the scope of maximalist behavior in choosing a spouse. It concludes that behaviors that are subject to mandatory or haram rulings are within the scope of contextual behavior and outside the scope of application of the economic approach. The behaviors that are subject to the rules of recommended or prohibited can be both contextual and optimization, and the economic approach is applicable to some extent in their analysis. Behaviors that are not subject to the mentioned rules are in the scope of rational behavior and it is expected that the economic approach can be used well in their analysis.

Keywords

• family economics
• rational decision-making
• maximization
• contextual behavior
• intuition