Another great piece by Jonah Lehrer about romance has this great tidbit. It's from a spreadsheet of Charles Darwin's thinking on the pros and cons of marrying Emma Wedgewood:
In the "Marry" column, Darwin entered: "Home and someone to take care of house--Charms of music and female chit-chat. These things good for one's health. Forced to visit and receive relations but terrible loss of time. My God, is it intolerable to think of spending one's whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working, & nothing after all." The antipode to those points, in the "Not Marry" column, was: "Freedom to go where one liked--Choice of Society and little of it. Conversations of clever men at clubs. Not forced to visit relatives, and to bend to every little trifle."
In the "Marry" column, Darwin entered: "Home and someone to take care of house--Charms of music and female chit-chat. These things good for one's health. Forced to visit and receive relations but terrible loss of time. My God, is it intolerable to think of spending one's whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working, & nothing after all." The antipode to those points, in the "Not Marry" column, was: "Freedom to go where one liked--Choice of Society and little of it. Conversations of clever men at clubs. Not forced to visit relatives, and to bend to every little trifle."
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