Second Wives: The Pitfalls and Rewards of Marrying Widowers and Divorced Men
Barash, a second wife in both her marriages and author of A Passion for More: First Wives Reveal the Affairs That Make or Break Their Marriages, has interviewed hundreds of second wives from all walks of life as well as experts in divorce law and counseling. Her topics include competing with first wives, revenge of first wives, inheriting children, domestic violence, widowers' second wives, power and trophy wives, in-laws past and present, and having children as a new couple. Life stories (with the names of interviewees changed) are interspersed with commentary from attorneys and counselors, but following them is difficult because Barash leaps from one story to another. Lists and boldfaced paragraphs aid in summarizing the discussions, but Barash's convoluted sentence structure makes reading slow; statistics are cited but without any footnotes. Still, women who are thinking of marrying a man who is saying I do again will find Barash's voice comforting.DSusan E. Burdick, Lower Merion Sch. Dist., Ardmore, PACopyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.