Again, this applies equally to the male. According to Becker, the mate-selection process takes place in a single market, which he calls the marriage market. This market can be any venue in which potential husbands or wives interact to display their talents, be it a singles bar on Saturday night or a church service on Sunday morning. It is in these settings that individuals, either consciously or subconsciously, compare the amount of Zs each can bring into potential relationships. The level of household production after marriage is the important point.
Individuals can combine Zs to produce meals, a better living environment, and children.
Note that the Z-good is a measure of both material production as well as psychic production. The amount of income one produces in the market is a major determinant of the quality of Zs one can produce in the home as well as bring into a relationship. From here it is simple to deduce that not only will divorce take place when the expected amount of Zsingle becomes greater than the amount of Zmarried, but also that polygamous relationships will form when married individuals decide that they can produce more Zs with more than one spouse. When the amount of expected Zsecond spouse is greater than the amount of Zfirst spouse, Becker's analysis predicts that we would see polygamous relationships develop in countries in which polygamy is legal. The same analysis applies to the decision of the polygamous individual with two spouses to seek a third, and so on.