Maggie Scarf: January 2009 Archives

Are second marriages more fragile than first marriages?

Are later marriages generally more successful and stable than first-time marriages? And, given that most remarriages (some 90 percent) follow upon divorce rather than death, do the disaffected ex-partners tend to make smarter, more mutually satisfying choices in a second or higher-order relationship?

Apparently not. The rate of marital breakup is spectacularly high in America--currently, over half of all first marriages end in divorce; but the rate of marital breakup in subsequent marriages is 10% higher--some 60%. As sociologists Frank Furstenberg and Andrew Cherlin point out in Divided Families, many remarried families simply don't make it through their early years together; about one fourth of all second marriages break apart within a five year period. This is a rate of marital disruption which is "significantly higher than the level among first marriages" according to Furstenberg and Cherlin.

But curiously enough, this enhanced risk of re-divorce exists only for the first five years of the remarried family's existence. At that point in time, the new family's chances of remaining together are roughly the same, or even better, than those of a family living in an intact, first-time-ever nuclear household.

What is the "marriage gap"?

Since the great social ferment of the 1960s, a number of alternatives to old-fashioned, traditional marriage have emerged on the social scene. Relationships that once were viewed as morally offensive - sexual partners living together before marrying; out-of-wedlock births; single-parent child rearing - are now both acceptable and commonplace. Couples enter wedlock with a more light-hearted attitude ("If this doesn't work out, I can move on). A reflection of this is the fact that between the 1960s and the 1990s, the divorce rate tripled; it has now flattened, and gone down a slight amount, but at the present time, there is little social stigma in the wake of a divorce. Paradoxically, it seems that the only people putting up a desperate fight for the right to get married are members of the gay community - and they're not having an easy time of it.

Less obvious to the population at large is a phenomenon that sociologists have termed "the marriage gap." This "gap" refers to the ever-widening chasm between poor, uneducated mothers - who often have their babies without getting married - and their more affluent sisters, who have the means and the impetus to get educated and start their careers before marrying and starting to create their families. Scholars of the family tell me that, at present, the divorce rate is going down among these more advantaged couples and up among those poorer, less-educated couples who do decide to tie the marital knot. As social scientist Andrew Cherlin suggests, the marriages of the financially stressed are more fragile from the get-go. "They never have enough money ; they have health problems; they have to deal with the trying, difficult lives of poverty."Obviously, this can cause tensions in a marriage; it can also cause people to forego getting married in the first place.

It should be added that cultural factors are also intertwined with these economic factors, for whites and Latinos are more likely to be married than are African-Americans, in the same way that wealthier people are more likely to be married than are the poor.

For an excellent discussion of "the marriage gap" and related issues, see:

CHERLIN, ANDREW J.THE DEINSTITUIONALIZATION OF AMERICAN MARRIAGE
Journal of Marriage and Family 66 (November 2004): 848-861