Evening star., 1935-08-07

~ compiled statistics on marri-
"A ages, more widowers remarry
4 4 than widows. That is easy to
explain. There are more widows than
widowers, because, for some unknown
reason, wives are apt to outlive their
husbands. Likewise, the widower has
q better chance to remarry than the
widow has.
With the widower, remarriage is a
matter of volition. With the widow
1t Is luck. The widower who desires
to remarry can put on his courting
clothes and go forth and look em
over and take his pick Of the fairest
Of the fair, since he is universally rec
ognized by women as a matrimonial
best bet. Not even the possession Of
children Is fatal handicap to him.
But all that The widow who wishes
to remarry can do is to sit on the
anxious seat and pray heaven to send
her husband. There Is mighty little
she can do to help herself to one.
For men have an atavistic fear Of
her mourning and begins to take no.
tice they flee for their lives. And if
a. widow has children her chances OF
remarrying are so slim she might just
as well reconcile herself to the dea
of being faithful to the memory of her
dear departed John.
For while most women are willing
to mother some other woman's chill
dren, it is only the occasional nan
who is willing to support some other
mans offspring.
NOW am strong for widowers and
widows remarrying, If, when, and
how they can. think a second mar
riage is far more likely to be happy
and successful than a first venture
for the very excellent reason that they
go into it as professionals, so to speak,
instead of as amateurs. Nobody ever
comes out of marriage the same as
they went into it. They have been
disciplined. They have had their ego
Debated. Their selfishness curbed.
Their spirits humbled. They have
been house broken and domeSticated
and taught how to go on leash. And
every husband and wife learns about
women and men from those they are
married to.
Young brides and grooms think that
marriage is going TO be a picnic, and
| that they are espousing angels and
little tin gods. Those who ring the
wedding bells for the second time
know that they are marrying Just
ordinary human men and women, with
their faults and weaknesses thick upon
them, and that If their marriages are
festive affairs they have TO make them
so by being the life of the party them
selves.
So the widows and widowers who
remarry are prepared for matrimony.
| The man knows that it takes money
to support home and wife and
he doesn't have fits when the bills
| come in. The woman does not have
| Mysteries and think her husband has
ceased to love her because he no
| longer spends his time holding her
hand and paying her grandiloquent
compliments. And they both know
that 1t isn't what you do or say
in marriage, but the way you do or
i say it, that counts, and that gives
them a technique that enables them
to get along in peace with each other
| where youngsters would fight.
CTILL and all, admitting that a
second venture is preferred mat
| rimonial risk, one wonders why they
do it. One wonders that those who
have been happily married dare risk
the experiment of trying to repeat
dream, of substituting another for
| an ideal wife or husband.
And one wonders still more that
those who have been unhappily mar
| ried do not dread marriage as they