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Why are so many widowers eager to marry again when widows are much more cautious about committing themselves, asks Mary Kenny
It is said that once a man is married, he is hardly ever again unmarried. That is, should he be widowed or divorced, he will nearly always marry again. This is much less true for women. Widows and divorcées are less likely to repeat the experience of marriage.
Former Blue Peter presenter Caron Keating's widower, Russ Lindsay – and father of their two children – is foursquare in the tradition of remarriage two years after the death of his popular and beautiful wife from breast cancer. His mother-in-law, Gloria Hunniford has given her blessing to his new union with the television presenter Sally Meen, though she thought it more tactful not to attend the nuptials.
And I believe I'm right in saying that most mothers-in-law would take a similar view of a remarriage, just so long as the new bride is likely to be a kindly stepmother to the grandchildren.
Deep down, most women feel that men on their own are needier than women in similar circumstances: emotionally needier, sexually needier and in greater need of conjugal support in bringing up a family. Men can raise children on their own, but Mr Lindsay surely articulated a consensus of values when he said that with his new wife, "we're a family again".
Men remarry more frequently than women partly because they have more opportunity to do so – ask anyone running a dating agency whether they'd like more available older men on their books, or more 40-plus women – but also, possibly, because they have more need and inclination.
Many studies have claimed that for a man to remarry is a compliment both to his late wife, and to the experience of marriage. It made him happy before, and will do so again. It is not unusual, either, for a man to remarry a woman who bears a physical similarity to his first wife.
A more cynical analysis might say that men are serviced by marriage, whereas women do most of the servicing. The feminist sociologist Jessie Bernard certainly took that approach in her classic text on The Future of Marriage.
Women, she said, put the work in: they structure most of the domestic arrangements and take responsibility for everything from the Christmas card list to remembering in-laws' birthdays. Men remarry, she has said, because they are the beneficiaries of wedlock whereas women are the emotional, psychological and familial net contributors.
Thus, while many women would like to remarry, they are inclined to approach it more carefully – since the personal investment by women is much higher, the rewards must be commensurate.
One widow I encountered put it like this: "Another husband would have to be well worth ironing eight shirts a week for."
Yet first wives faced with the prospect of their own demise often encourage their husbands to remarry after their death. These altruistic women don't want to think of their partners being left alone in the world, especially where there are children still at home: better a well-chosen stepmother than a series of nannies and au pairs.
Linda McCartney apparently urged Paul to remarry after her death. But oh dear, Sir Paul rather exemplified the pitfalls of formalising an imprudent second union, which apparently never had the approval or affection of the children of the first marriage.
Christian and Jewish traditions have wisely set out a specific period of mourning after a spouse's death, not just to give the bereaved person time to heal, but to prevent the folly of an ill-judged remarriage. Or indeed, to protect against the vulnerability that older men can manifest, as in the proverb "There's no fool like an old fool."
By custom and tradition, and in some cases actually by church law, a bereaved spouse was disbarred from remarriage without the mourning period. This could be anything between two to five years (in the Victorian period, and even later, widows' weeds were worn for at least two years after the bereavement, and thereafter there was a complex dress code proceeding through lavender, grey and then normal colours once again).
The difference, though, between widows and widowers, has often been marked in literature and even painting. The widow has often been a bravely tragic figure – though sometimes heroic, and in operetta, notoriously merry. But the widower, from Jane Eyre to Jilly Cooper and The Sound of Music, has been viewed as an eligible bachelor, with the added élan of worldly experience and perhaps endearing kiddiwinks.
Biology has never granted equality between the sexes, and I don't think it ever will; but there are compensations in all things. If we feel that men are needier when bereaved, isn't it because we know that women are stronger and more self-reliant in coping with life alone?
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