With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, this time of year can involve difficult decisions. Is it finally time to pluck up the courage and confess your feelings for a loved one? Perhaps you need to end a relationship before they send you a present. Or maybe, February 14 is the perfect time to get down on one knee.

For this question in particular, Victorian naturalist Charles Darwin took a characteristically scientific approach: a pros and cons list of getting married.

The pros and cons list has been adopted throughout cultural history, perhaps most memorably in recent years in the Sex and the City film, when Miranda drew one up to help her decide whether she should stay with the father of her child, Steve.