Are Second Marriages Happier Than First?

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 986, 31 May 1930, Page 20

Are Second Marriages Happier Than First?

Have Those Who Fail in First Matrimonial Venture a Chance of Succeeding in a Second Marriage? . . . Expert Opinions Differ . . . w; ISI'J? M] HAT happens to second ' 'lf 'f' marriages? In these I f * a >' s "‘ben the mills of jk'Jm MiA divorce ax-e spinning fast ; j and great numbers of persons dissolve their marriages only to follow them with another marriage, it is logical to ask what chances of happiness they have the second time. Do these divorced persona learn from their experiences? Or does their first matrimonial wreck cause them > become too cynical and disillusioned to gain any real happiness in mari iage again? Then, too, wouldn’t the personality defects that made for dis t ord 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 i wives are today seeking the easiest way out of their marital difficulties by revering 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 gi-ounds have chosen to play the cry-baby rather than sticking to their marriages end making them work. Will such persons achieve happiness in a second marriage?

While actual data on second marriages has never been gathered, yet there are authorities who come close

•o 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 know, in general, what the possibilities are for success in a second matrimonial venture.

Mrs. Frances Binkley, who, with her husband, Professor Robert C. Binkley, v. rote a brilliant guide for married people, "What Is Right With Marliage?” as well as many articles on marriage, was consulted. "Where a second marriage follows a temperamental failure in the first marriage, I would not be too hopeful of success,” she began. “We are justly suspicious of the person who compiains that his marriage partner does not understand him, A flight from partner to partner may leave Unsolved a problem of character that will prove a drawback in any marriage.

"Again, the romantic individual who expects that marriage, by some 1 magical means, will confer on him a state of perfect happiness is not i’kely to be successful in marriage. The disillusionment of which he com--1 iains in his first marriage may mean simply that he was himself unable to make any active effort toward har xuonious living, that he is the victim j of his moods, that he had not the i patience to await the values that time brings to marriage His second marriage will therefore very likely go the way of the first. "Then there are many persons who make i sincere attempt to make a go of marriage hut who become frightened at the 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 diffi unities 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. gene-j ra! rule, I should say that, on the whole, people learn through suffer- i ing, and by their greater knowledge j of human nature, tolerance, and 1 broader sympathy are equipped for a j sec ond marriage as they were not tor j the first. What is more, since second marriages eonxe iater in life, they have ! better chance of success, because of 1 the patience, the genial humour, and I

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 who are always prone to fail. "These types,” he said, “are recognised by psychiatrists as ci'ippled personalities, stupid, lonely, queer, moody, neurotic, or pexwerse personalities. No matter how many times they are faced with the same situations, they will make unusual difficul ties for themselves. Naturally these personalities, especially the neurotic ones, are predisposed to nake unhappy marriages. They can marry several times, and the results will be the same unless their personalities are corrected.”

“One therefore has to know what caused the fii-st failure, and to ascertain whether the divorced man or woman belongs to any of the types I have enumerated before one could tell how they would fare in a second marriage. I - should think that the chances for happiness are distinctly less for the divorced person, that it would be a risk to marry him."

Dr. Fritz Wittels is an eminent Viennese psychoanalyst and a colleague of Dr. Sigmund Freud. He is. also the author of many popular and scientific books which have been translated into several languages, the best known of which is “The Critique of Love.” Di\ Wittels believes that on the whole divorced persons should be happier in their second marriages, because by that time they have awakened to the 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 the tasks that are involvedHe knows equally little about the biological and psychological 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 liis first one, yet he is more successful with her. He does not make impossible demands of the marriage. Then, too, a young woman may have a father comp'yx. 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 had in mind. She divorces him because she cannot he happy with him. But by the time she is ready for a second marriage she lias usually become fi-eed from that emotional imprisonment, and she is more satisfied with her second husband. She does not think that he must be like her fathex-. The same thing holds true of the young man who has had a mother complex. His second mar riage will be a better one. “Divorced persons have learned ; many things from their first marriage. ! They are older, wiser and more eolerj ant when they marry again. But, on | the other hand, we must likewise | remember that divorced persons are j also more embittered and -suspicious ' as a result of their first unhappy exj perience. 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 j 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, lias made numerous thorough personality studies of divorced persons. It is his opinion, too, that they are generally more successful in their second at empt at marx-iage. “But,” he continued, “when it comes to considering whether divorced persons are more likely to achieve happiness in a second marriage than pei'sons who are marrying for the fii-st time, then-1 cannot answer in the affirmative. In comparison, the mar riages of divorced persons do not turn out so well. “Let us first consider why divorced persons are better off in their second marriages. One reason is that there is in their second marriage less if that turbulent adolescent emotion of love. Because it has fewer emotional resources, it has fewer possibilities of disastei'. Thei’e 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 a cei’taiu distance because they are not madly in love with each other. This helps them to get along, because social distance is an arrangement of life which enables one to avoid too close contact with other persons. Ci is pretty clear what each may expect of his mate and what he must seek elsewhere. “A second wife has certain advantages.

“She often gets without a struggle what her predecessor had to fight for. A woman will try to manage her husband 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 off. Her task is easier because the husband has been broken in. “Some divorced pei'sons 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 demand 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 better fit them for another mari’iage. “Yet, despite these advantages, 1 , 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 pei'sons marrying thi'ee and four times and never able to accept life as they find it. j “Divorced persons should not marry i again until they are sure that (he j emotional reverberations of their first i matrimonial catastropixe have died i out. But even at that, they are not such good matrimonial prospects, foxdivorce always casts a suspicion of a : previous existing personality defect I which would make for failure in a ; j subsequent marital relationship.”