Are you happy in your marriage--except for those weekly spats over who empties the dishwasher more often? Not a single complaint--unless you count the fact that you haven't had sex since the Bush administration? Prepared to be there in sickness and in health--so long as it doesn't mean compromising? Be honest: Ever lay awake thinking how much more fun married life used to be?

If you're a member of the human race, then the answer is probably "yes" to all of the above. Marriage is a mysterious, often irrational business. Making it work till death do you part--or just till the end of the week--isn't always easy. And no one ever handed you a user's manual.

Until now. With Spousonomics, Paula Szuchman and Jenny Anderson offer something new: a clear-eyed, rational route to demystifying your disagreements and improving your relationship. The key, they propose, is to think like an economist.

That's right: an economist.

Economics is the study of resource allocation, after all. How do we--as partners in a society, a business, or a marriage--spend our limited time, money, and energy? And how do we allocate these resources most efficiently? Spousonomics answers these questions by taking classic economic concepts and applying them to the domestic front. For example: