THE SECOND TIME AROUND: Remarriage in America

by Leslie Aldridge Westoff ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1977

What's astonishing, Westoff finds, is the number of twice-married couples interviewed who came up with very similar reactions to their new marriages. By far the hrger proportion claimed to be happy, well-adjusted, better satisfied sexually than before, and content to remain in their second marriages. Their complaints revolve around problems with stepchildren (though the author contends that the word ""step"" with regard to both parents and children ought to be dropped from our vocabularies), with alimony and child-support payments. And if some problems (the result of crisscrossed family relationships and adjustments to new--and often alien--personalities) aren't easy to cope with, at least they're universals--an old husband or wife stirring up resentments in children and making trouble for new partners; children doing the same; money and guilt complicating the situation further. Altogether this is a reasonable representation of a reasonably new sociological phenomenon, and one that ought to provide a certain amount of reassurance (if not too many answers) for the multiply-married.

Pub Date: May 1, 1977

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1977

Categories: NONFICTION