# Serial marraige: What's the angle? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 9, 2014, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serial-marraige-whats-the-angle/685689 "2014-04-09T02:35:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2014, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serial-marraige-whats-the-angle/685689/41 "2014-04-11T15:34:23Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > There’s a joke I heard: in your first year of marriage, put a penny in a jar next to the bed every time you have sex. After the first year, take a penny out each time you have sex. The jar will never be emptied. > > I think a lot of people remarry because that first year seems magical and they want to experience it again. > > Another theory I have is that people usually marry for love. When you fight, love is not enough to keep the couple together. In most other countries in the world, marriage is a business arrangement between families. Love is not even required. While many do fall in love over time, it’s not necessary to get married. Social status, employment, family harmony, etc. are far more important. Yep. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2014, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serial-marraige-whats-the-angle/685689/42 "2014-04-11T16:15:02Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > There’s a joke I heard: in your first year of marriage, put a penny in a jar next to the bed every time you have sex. After the first year, take a penny out each time you have sex. The jar will never be emptied. > > I think a lot of people remarry because that first year seems magical and they want to experience it again. > > Another theory I have is that people usually marry for love. When you fight, love is not enough to keep the couple together. In most other countries in the world, marriage is a business arrangement between families. Love is not even required. While many do fall in love over time, it’s not necessary to get married. Social status, employment, family harmony, etc. are far more important. Yeah, their is a lot to be said about compatibility issues and agreeing on things like sex, money, kids, careers, lifestyles, control issues, etc… Around here they really push pre-marital counseling and I know more than one minister who will NOT marry a couple if he feels the marriage wont work out. A friend told me that when they went thru the group classes together many a time a couple leaves in tears because they realize it wont really work out. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2014, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serial-marraige-whats-the-angle/685689/43 "2014-04-11T16:53:10Z")
My ex-wife has been married four times (I was the first.) From what I heard about the other three, each of us seemed to have one thing she was looking for, but none of us had the entire package. Or putting it another way, she always wanted what she didn’t have at that moment. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2014, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serial-marraige-whats-the-angle/685689/44 "2014-04-11T17:14:17Z")
> [@opossum](#): > > Hope vs experience. Which wins? > [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > Because \*this \*time will be different! > [@micadw](#): > > People change. My husband of twenty years isn’t the same man I married. I also think no one really wants to grow old alone. > [@Gatopescado](#): > > Some people never learn. It could be the opposite. Some people might go into the marriage with the realization that it probably won’t last. Divorce doesn’t kill you after all. Some people may just regard marriage as a temporary situation - like having a job or owning a car - rather than a lifetime commitment. Their attitude might be _“I’m getting married because I want to be married to this person now. If I decide later on I don’t want to be married to this person, I’ll get divorced.”_ ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serial-marraige-whats-the-angle/685689/45 "2014-04-12T04:18:05Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > It could be the opposite. Some people might go into the marriage with the realization that it probably won’t last. Divorce doesn’t kill you after all. > > Some people may just regard marriage as a temporary situation - like having a job or owning a car - rather than a lifetime commitment. > > Their attitude might be _“I’m getting married because I want to be married to this person now. If I decide later on I don’t want to be married to this person, I’ll get divorced.”_ I think I’ve heard the terms “Starter Marriage” and “Practice Marriage” before. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serial-marraige-whats-the-angle/685689/46 "2014-04-12T15:07:47Z")
I’m not going to give any numbers but I’ve been married “a few” times and in live in relationships “a few more” times. With the exception of my last marriage I’ve never really expected any of my involvements to last. With Marice, I thought it was for life. I now live alone for what is really the first time in my adult life and I’m 74 years old and a very slow learner. I think now I should never have been married and never involved in any sort of long term relationship. It hasn’t been easy to accept that about myself. Make that Marcie and not Marice: what the hell is a Marice? ---
**Author:** ![Mrs.Cake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2acd7d/32.png) [@Mrs.Cake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mrs.Cake)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serial-marraige-whats-the-angle/685689/47 "2014-04-12T18:54:40Z")
I was in a few living together monogamous (on my part, anyway) relationships before I was married. None of them would have lasted more than a few years if we had married, but each gave me something I needed or wanted at the time, even if that was only painful lessons about what to specifically avoid in a mate. I’ve been married once, my sister four times. The main difference between us is she married her short-termers and I only got married when I was both ready to be married and had the sense to marry the right person and work at keeping it lively. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serial-marraige-whats-the-angle/685689/48 "2014-04-13T08:40:26Z")
> [@LouisB](#): > > I’m not going to give any numbers but I’ve been married “a few” times and in live in relationships “a few more” times. With the exception of my last marriage I’ve never really expected any of my involvements to last. With Marice, I thought it was for life. > I now live alone for what is really the first time in my adult life and I’m 74 years old and a very slow learner. I think now I should never have been married and never involved in any sort of long term relationship. It hasn’t been easy to accept that about myself. > > Make that Marcie and not Marice: what the hell is a Marice? That’s what some people call me, when I speak of the pompatus of love. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serial-marraige-whats-the-angle/685689/49 "2014-04-13T10:54:29Z")
I think it’s a serious mistake to lump all people who remarry into one group. Is the OP seriously asking > [@](#): > > what the appeal is of getting married a **second** /third/fourth/etc time Have the marriages in the US end in a divorce and many of those go one to get re From here > [@](#): > > Among all people 15 and older in 2009, 55 percent had been married once, with 30 percent never having been married at all, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report released today. At the same time, 15 percent had married more than once, including 12 percent who had married twice and 3 percent who had married three or more times. > > ``` > “The findings come from Number, Timing, and Duration of Marriages and Divorces: 2009 [PDF], which uses data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation to provide a look at topics such as changes in the age at marriage, divorce and remarriage over the years, how long first marriages last, people who have been married multiple times, those who have been divorced or experienced other marital events, and the percentage of currently married couples that include spouses who are both in their first marriage. > > More than half of currently married couples (55 percent) had been married for at least 15 years, while 35 percent had reached their 25th anniversary. A small percentage — 6 percent — had even passed their golden (50th) wedding anniversary. These percentages are about 1 to 2 percentage points higher than they were in 1996, reflecting both the leveling of divorce rates and increases in life expectancy. > > For most couples (72 percent), both spouses were in their first marriage. Six percent of those married included a wife in her second marriage and husband in his first, 8 percent a husband in his second marriage and wife in her first, and 8 percent in which both spouses were in their second marriage. A small percentage of all currently married couples (1 percent) consisted of a husband and wife who had both been married three or more times. > > ``` Basically, you’ve got a large group of people who have been married once a sizable number of have been married twice and then a very small number of people who have been married more than that. I’m not going to take the time to look further, but my WAG is that most of that 3% of the three or more is going to have the vast majority at three marriages and miniscule numbers of more. Being married twice is not a bid deal and just looking at that fact cannot say anything about the person. Move one to many more and you’ve got a difference situation. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serial-marraige-whats-the-angle/685689/50 "2014-04-13T11:01:58Z")
Sorry, that should have been. Half the marriages in the US end in a divorce and many of those go on to get remarried. [From here](http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/marital_status_living_arrangements/cb11-90.html) ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serial-marraige-whats-the-angle/685689/51 "2014-04-13T12:26:18Z")
Why do people marry more than once? Perhaps because they view each person as an individual, not only as a representative of a group. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serial-marraige-whats-the-angle/685689.md?page=2)