mating = marriage?

Context:
Such differences of opinion can rarely be resolved by trading examples or anecdotes, or arguing from first principles. It more often helps to apply some psychology. With this in mind, some colleagues and I devised a series of experiments inspired by "costly signalling theory" - the idea that animals, including humans, use costly, intricate and hard-to-fake signals to flaunt their biological fitness to potential mates and social partners. Our goal was to see how thinking about mating influences people's decisions about spending and giving (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol 93, p 85).