Describe the concept of remarriage and define a blended family

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Most people who divorce get remarried. In recent years, more than 40

percent of all marriages were between previously married brides and/or

grooms. Most divorced people remarry others who have been divorced.

However, remarriage rates vary be gender and age. At all ages, a

greater proportion of men than women remarry, often relatively soon after

the divorce. Among women, the older a woman is at the time of divorce,

the lower her likelihood of remarrying. Women who have not graduated

from high school and who have young children tend to remarry relatively

quickly; by contrast, women with a college degree and without children

are less likely to remarry. As a result of divorce and remarriage, complex

family relationships are often created. Some people become part of

stepfamilies or blended families which consist of a husband and wife,

children from previous marriages, and children (if any) from the new

marriage.

At least initially, levels of family stress may be fairly high because of rivalry among the

children and hostilities directed toward stepparents or babies born into the family. In spite of

these problems, however, many blended families succeed. The family that results from

divorce and remarriage is typically a complex, binuclear family in which children may have a

biological parent and a stepparent, biological siblings and stepsiblings, and an array of

relatives.