Research shows divorced men and widowers are eager to take another chance at love while the women are much more cautious about committing themselves

Evelyn Makena @evemake_g

They say that once a man is married, he is hardly ever again unmarried. That is, should he be widowed or divorced, he will nearly always marry again.

This is much less trie for women. Widows and divorcees are less likely to repeat the experience of marriage.

But one thing is certain, the choice of when and with whom a woman chooses to move on with after divorce or the death of her husband attracts a lot of controversy.

Statistics show that men are more likely to remarry after death of a spouse or divorce compared to women.

A 2014 research by Pew Research Center reveals that two third of widowed and divorced men remarried compared to only half of women.

“Among previously married men, 65 per cent either want to remarry or are not sure; 30 per cent say that they don’t want to remarry.

Among women who are currently divorced or widowed, only 43 per cent say they may want to remarry,” says the report.

The research found a strong co-relation between remarrying and financial wellbeing.

Remarried adults tend to be more financially secure compared to their divorced counterparts. Divorced people were three times likely to live in poverty in comparison with those recently remarried. 

Likewise, the median personal income of remarried adults was Sh500,000 higher than that of divorced individuals.

Generally, marriage has also been linked to better health, especially for men. Perhaps it’s not surprising why men are so eager to remarry than women.

A 2019 survey of over 127,000 American men found that married men were healthier as compared to those that were divorced or widowed.

The study by Havard Medical School, linked the social support and company that comes with marriage to better health. 

Heart health benefited the most from marriage with a Japanese study reporting that never married men were more three times likely to die from a cardiovascular disease than married men.

Being married also improved the rate of survival for men with cancer and other chronic illnesses. Similarly, married men had better cognitive function, improved blood sugar levels and less likelihood of sexually transmitted diseases as compared to widowed or separated men.

Married men eat well compared to their single or divorced counterparts, get regular medical care, less likely to smoke, drink or engage in other risky behaviors.

Cumulatively these behaviours translate into better health for married men.  

These benefits to men notwithstanding, societal expectations and restrictive laws have been made to bar women from remarrying.

Until December 2015, it was illegal for a woman in Japan to remarry within six months after divorce. This provision was  meant to avoid uncertainty about the paternity of any child born within that period.

The law was related to another Japanese provision that presumes a previous husband to be the father of any child born within 300 days after divorce.

It was repealed by the Supreme Court of Japan in 2015 to allow women to remarry within 100  days.