Serial or relay marriages

[AndiFlatland]

Let's try this one again, and this time, can I please have sensible, considered answers, and not just brain-dead pond life making smartass remarks which aren't remotely helpful. Thanks.

Here's the question again:

Not quite sure how to phrase this one, so I hope this makes sense.

A couple get married. Eventually, one of the partners dies, leaving the other free to re-marry.

After some time, the new partner divorces the first partner, and so the process continues again, with the first bereaved partner marrying again..

Then the original partner dies, leaving the second spouse free to re-marry. And so on - make up your own scenarios!

This can obviously carry on pretty much indefinitely, I would imagine, with either one partner dying, or the couple divorcing, and one - or both - of the partners re-marrying.

Are there any figures on this? Is there any record of an ongoing marriage where serial deaths and divorces have led to there being a marriage which has, in one form or another, kept going for, say, a couple of centuries, or even longer?

[asteroid99]

Assuming most people are around the same age as each other when they marry, then I don't see how your 'serial/relay' marriage could go on for a couple of centuries or more. More like than an adult lifetime, plus a few years to take into account some people within the group may be younger. (maybe 100years max?)

I kind of get where you are coming from but don't really think the question makes sense. If I married someone who was divorced, I wouldn't be anything to do with my husbands first wifes first marriage (if she had been divorced before marrying my hubby) (for instance).

I am certain there will be no figures on this.

[redcrx]

"brain-dead pond life making smartass remarks"

that was Ethel wasnt it, she does seem to rub people up the wrong way

[jno]

well, it could, but it would depend on the survivor marrying someone much younger and that person waiting until old and then marring someone much younger... and so on. It suggests, say, a young man marrying a much older woman then long after her death marrying a much younger woman. I'm not sure men change their tastes quite so strongly. I wouldn't be too amazed if it had happened in Hollywood, but I don't know of any.

[AndiFlatland]

OK, thanks for some better answers than the last time - but I'm not sure you've yet understood exactly what I meant. Maybe I just didn't explain it very well.

It could quite easily happen, and whether or not a new partner has anything to do with their spouse's previous partner is not relevant.

Likewise, neither is the age of either partner.

Yes, I guess it could be a bit Hollywoodish - but it could happen equally anywhere in the world, and at any time in human history - and I suspect it probably has.

What I'm getting at is that for the majority of marriages, it is just 2 people, 1-on-1, until either, one dies, or they divorce. In the case of death at a late age, there is probably little chance of the remaining partner remarrying. But if it happens when either partner is quite young, the remaining partner is in with a very good chance.

In the case of divorce, especially at an early age, again, both partners would be well-placed to remarry.

So if young death or divorce led to remarriage, then one or both partners would have what I can only describe as a 'serial' or 'relay' marriage.

The number of times this could happen, given the right circumstances, would appear to be almost infinite, and could theoretically stretch back over centuries. Does this make more sense now?

By the way, redcrx, your assumption is correct - but the one below it was just pathetic. It is a valid question, and if you don't ask questions in life, you don't get any answers. It was just a thought that kept popping into my head - but I wasn't consumed with it to the exclusion of all else!!

[jno]

age isn't anything to do with it, but it's like asteroid says: if everyone marries someone their own age, then all the spouses will die about the same time. If you want it to keep going over more than the 80 or so years which most people live to, then you'd need an age difference somewhere along the line.

But if you're just adding together the number of years individuals have been married for, even if they all live in the same century, then I guess you'd need quite a few divorces to produce a high figure. I don't know of anyone who keeps records of this, though.

[Tups]

I'm trying really hard to understand all this but afraid I don't have a PhD in conundrums! Without really understanding the first question, can I pose another: Who will be married to whom in Heaven?????! :-)

[Mamyalynne]

In andyflatland whay drugs are you on ?.i f this is for a thesis your tutor wants sorting !!

Good luck with this pointless quest

Mamya x

[AndiFlatland]

Oh dear, here we go a-flippin'gain!!

What is wrong with you people? (Tups and Mamyalynne). If you don't have anything constructive to say, why waste your time making empty, shallow, stupid and insulting comments.

It is a perfectly simple, and, as I said last time, fully valid question which should be of interest to anybody to whom the thought has never occurred before.

The fact that you can't get your silly heads around it, and waste bits of your lives which you'll never get back taking the p*** out of people who still have inquiring minds, forces the rest of us down to your level - and I have now lost 5 minutes of my life which can never be recalled, telling you this.

Back to the high chair and the plastic plates with you all, fools!

And jno - no disrespect, at least you tried - but you're still missing the point. Have another try.

[Mumof2]

Andi
You seem a little obsessed with this question

How can it be an ongoing marriage ,if someone dies/ divorces and then the surviving person marries someone else then it's not a continuation of the former union... it's a new marriage.

I have now wasted 5 minutes answering this question

[Mrs_Pegasus]

For it to carry on indefinitely then when the one partner is say 70 he/she would have to marry someone who is say 20 years old and for them to also marry someone 20 years old when they are 70????

Have I got that right?