Diamonds Are a Marriage Counselor’s Best Friend (Replay)

Season 5, Episode 32

On this week’s Freakonomics Radio, we meet a young Michigan couple who win a diamond at a charity event and then can’t decide what to do with it. Sell? Set it in a ring? Or stash it in the laundry room and just keep fighting about it? We also hear from Edward Jay Epstein, who wrote a book about trying to resell a diamond, and we learn the strange, shady history of how diamonds have come to be as “valuable” as they are.

Then, we learn why so many fewer people are getting married. The University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers discusses his marriage research; we also learn, from Howard University psychologist Ivory Toldson, that eligible black men aren’t as scarce as we’ve been told. And Democratic pollster Celinda Lake talks about the politics of the changing marriage landscape.

To learn more, check out the podcasts from which this hour was drawn: “Diamonds Are a Marriage Counselor’s Best Friend” and “Why Marry, Part 2.”

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