SECOND MARRIAGES

Evening Star, Issue 20507, 11 June 1930, Page 12

SECOND MARRIAGES

HAPPIER THAN FIRST? What happens to'second marriages? In these days when the mills of divorce are spinning last and great numbers of persons dissolve their marriages only to follow them up with another marriage, it is logical to ask what chances of happiness they have the second time. Do these divorced persons learn from their experiences? -Or docs their first matrimonial wreck cause them to become too cynical and disillusioned to gain any real happipess in' marriage again? Then, too, wouldn’t the personality defects that made for discord and failure in-the first marriage create similar difficulties when the person remarries? Is.it a risk to marry a divorced person? Or does he make a better and more understanding mate than one who has not been married previously? Another question to be considered in reference to the desirability of marrying divorced persons is raised by the fact that many husbands and wives are to-day seeking the easiest way out of their marital difficulties by severing the knot that binds them together. In many instances the causes for divorce seem so trivial that one cannot but infer that those seeking a separation on slight grounds have chosen to play tho cry-baby rather,than sticking to their marriages and making them work. Will such persons achieve happiness in a second marriage? While actual data on second marriages has never been gathered, yet there arc authorities who come close to the situation because of long study of the marriage problem, of fruitful experience in straightening out marital tangles, or because they have an understanding of the science, the human mind, and human behaviour. They knew, in general, what the possibilities are for success in a second matrimonial venture. Mrs Frances Binkley, who, with her husband, Professor Robert C. Binkley, wrote a brilliant guide for married people, ‘ What is Right with Marriage?’ as well as many articles on marriage, was consulted. ' Where a second marriage follows a temperamental failure in the' first marriage ! would not be too hopeful of success ’ she began. “We are justly suspicious of the person who complains that his marriage partner does .not understand him. A flight from partner to partner may leave unsolved a problem of character that will provt; a drawback in any marriage. “ Again, the romantic individual who expects that marriage, by some magical means, will confer on him a state of perfect happiness is not likely to bo successful in marriage. The disillusionment of which he complains in his first marriage may mean simply that he was himself, unable to make any' active effort toward harmonious living, that he is tho victim of his moods, that he had not tho patience to await the values that time brings to marriage. His second marriage xvill therefore very likely go the way of the first. “ Then there are very many persons who make a sincere attempt to make a go of marriage, but who become frightened' at tho difficulties and seek to escape them by divorce. If such a person marries again the second marriage is likely to be paralysed by his failure in the first. The same difficulties of adjustment will continue to confront him, and he will meet them with a diminished resource of courage. He will imagine that his partner is to blame, when actually it is his own character that needs development., “ While each' marriage represents a unique combination of personal factors and it is difficult to make a general rule, I should say that, on the whole, people learn through suffering, qnd by their greater knowledge of human nature, tolerance, and broader sympathy 'quipped for a second marriage as they were not for the first. What is more, since second marriage come later in life they have a better chance of success, because of tho patience, tho genial humour, and sense of values that come with the years.” Dr Karl Menninger, a psychiatrist and author of ‘The Human Mind,’ claimed that there are certain types of persons wno are always prone 10 fail. “These types,’] he said, “are recognised by psychiatrists as crippled personalities, stupid, lonely, queer, moody, neurotic, or perverse personalities. No matter how many times they are faced with the same situations they will make unusual difficulties for themselves. Naturally these personalities, especially the neurotic ones, are predisposed to make unhappy marriages. They can marry several times, and the results will be the samp unless their personalities are corrected.”

“One therefore has to know what caused the first failure, and to ascertain whether the divorced man or woman belongs to any of tho types I have enumerated before one could tell how they would fare in a second marriage. 1 should think that the chances for happiness arc distinctly less lor* tho divorced person, and that it would bo a risk to marry him.” Dr Fritz Wittels is an eminent Viennese psychoanalyst and a colleague of Dr Sigmund Freud. He is also tho author of many popular and scientific books which have been translated into several languages, tho best known of which is ‘ The Critique of Love.’ Dr Wittels believes that on the whole divorced persons should be happier in their second marriages, because by that time they have awakened to tho realities of life. “ A person who marries for the first time has all sorts of romantic ideals and fancies about marriage. He knows little about discipline, the responsibilities, and tho tasks that are involved. Ho knows equally little about tho biological and physiological aspects of marriage. It is hard for him to make adjustments, and he cannot forgive the wife who has destroyed his ideals; When such a person marries the second time his eyes have been opened to life. He enters marriage more cautiously, and he has a better understanding of what it involves. While his second wife may not be any better than his first one, yet he is more successful with her. Ho does not; make impossible demands of the marriage. Then, too, a young woman may have a father complex. She has built up an emotional picture of her father as her love ideal. Unconsciously she seeks a marriage partner who would comply with this emotional pattern. The first marriage is a disillusionment to her. This man is not the ideal she has in mind. She divorces him because she cannot be happy with him. But by the time she is ready for a second marriage she has usually become freed from that emotional imprisonment) and she is more satisfied with her second husband. She does not think that lie must be like her father. The same thing holds true of tho young man who, has had a mother complex. Ilis second marriage will be a better one. “ Divorced persons have learned many things from their first marriage. They are older, wiser, and more tolerant when they marry again. But, on the other hand, wc must likewise remember that divorced persons are also more embittered and suspicious as a result of their first unhappy experience. For that reason, anyone who contemplates marrying a divorced person is taking a'risk. While the divorced one may do better in his second marriage, he will not make as good a mate as the one who has not been hurt by a previous marriage.” ' Professor Willard Waller, who is an authority on sociology, and the author of ‘ The Old Love and the New,’ a book of divorce and readjustment, has made numerous thorough personality studies of divorced persons. It is his opinion, too, that they are generally more successful in their second attempt at marriage. “But,” ho continued, “when it comes to considering whether divorced persons are more likely to achieve happiness in a second marriage than persons who are marrying for the first time, then I cannot answer in the affirmative. In comparison,, the marriages of divorced persons do not turn out iso well. “ Let us first consider why divorced persons are better off in their second marriages. One reason is that there fs in their second marriage less of that turbulent adolescent emotion of love. Because it has fewer emotional resources, it has fewer possibilities of disaster. There is no one so demanding, jealous, domineering, mean, and downright hateful as a person who loves you. “ Persons in a second, marriage are able to maintain ascertain distance because they are not'madly in love with each other This helps' them to get alorm. because social distance is an arrangement of life which enables one to avoid too close contact with other persons. It is pretty clear what each may expect of his mate and what ho must seek elsewhere. “ A second wife has certain advantages “She often gets without a struggle what her predecessor had to fight for. I A woman will try la manage her hus-

band and to get him to do things for her. Unable to make very much progress, she becomes impatient with him and he becomes disgusted with her. The second wife takes up where • the first one left oif. Her task is easier because the husband has been broken in.

“Some divorced persons succeed in their second marriages because they develop, whether they know it or not, a philosophy. They learn what one may and may not reasonably demamj of life. Divorced persons who do not quite arrive at the stage of philosophy sometimes become aware of their faults and try to correct them. That would bettor fit them for another marriage. “ yet, despite these advantages, I would consider it a bad risk to marry a person who has been divorced. .Why? Because in many cases the failure to get on in marriage is symptomatic of a deep-seated defect of personality which incapacitates a person for any marriage. Not in all cases, mind you, but in some. And these cases are numerous enough to make the whole group of divorced persons a bad risk, in this group you will find a large number who suffer from constitutional discontent. They were unhappy in their marriages because they are unhappy and discontented persons. They make a habit of it, and nothing in the world would satisfy them, not even a home in paradise. You find these persons marrying three and four times and never able to accept life as they find it. “ Divorced persons should not marry again until they are sure that the emotional reverberations of their first matrimonial catastrophe have, died out. But even at that they ax-e not such good matrimonial prospects, for divorce always casts a suspicion of a previous existing personality defect which would make for failure in a subsequent marital relatiqnship.”