Marrying off girls before they are eighteen years of age, also called early marriage, is a norm in many communities across the world. It is estimated that 15 million girls are married by the age of 18 each year in the world.

What can a large company learn from a marriage? In this new study researchers show that different social systems, be it a marriage between two individuals or a firm with thousands of employees, show similarities in the way they fail. When the reasons for failure are plotted on a graph, the curves obtained for the different social systems turned out to show similar distribution. For example,willingness of the individuals that make a system, to make sacrifices for the greater good of the system was found to be a key factor in keeping social systems alive.