Let $G$ be a simple graph with $2n$ vertices and a perfect matching. The forcing number of a perfect matching $M$ of $G$ is the smallest cardinality of a subset of $M$ that is contained in no other perfect matching of $G$. Let $f(G)$ and $F(G)$ denote the minimum and maximum forcing number of $G$ among all perfect matchings, respectively. Hetyei obtained that the maximum number of edges of graphs $G$ with a unique perfect matching is $n^2$ (see Lov{a}sz [20]). We know that $G$ has a unique perfect matching if and only if $f(G)=0$. Along this line, we generalize the classical result to all graphs $G$ with $f(G)=k$ for $0leq kleq n-1$, and obtain that the number of edges is at most $n^2+2nk-k^2-k$ and characterize the extremal graphs as well. Conversely, we get a non-trivial lower bound of $f(G)$ in terms of the order and size. For bipartite graphs, we gain corresponding stronger results. Further, we obtain a new upper bound of $F(G)$. Finally some open problems and conjectures are proposed.
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