So, tough one: which gives you greater life satisfaction, your spouse or your cat/dog? More to the point, is your dog/cat worth as much to your happiness as an extra £70,000? Ooh, even tougher. It was interesting, incidentally, that in the new film with Ralph Fiennes, The Return, about Odysseus coming back home from Troy, we see that his faithful hunting dog, Argos, literally on his last legs, recognises him before anyone else, including wife Penelope (Juliet Binoche). That tells you something, no? It also reminds us of the fundamental problem with the pet: it dies quite a bit sooner than the spouse.
Of course, the ideal is both-and: spouse plus dog/cat. I refer you to 101 Dalmatians, the premise of which is that Pongo and Perdita, the dalmatians in question, actually brought their owners together (very clever: by wrapping their leads round each other, so the two humans were brought into unexpected physical proximity) and the life satisfaction of the owners, already bolstered by a dog, was further enhanced by a happy marriage.
