Table of Contents
Definition of Remarriage
(noun) Marrying again after the death or divorce from a spouse.
Example of Remarriage
- An elderly individual gets remarried after a spouse dies, or two divorced people remarry different spouses.
Remarriage Pronunciation
Syllabification: re·mar·riage
Audio Pronunciation
Phonetic Spelling
- American English – /ree-mAIR-ij/
- British English – /ree-mAr-ij/
International Phonetic Alphabet
- American English – /riˈmɛrɪdʒ/
- British English – /ˌriːˈmarɪdʒ/
Usage Notes
- Plural: remarriages
- Type: digamy
- A type of marriage.
- Andrew Cherlin refers to remarriage as an “incomplete institution” in the aptly named “Remarriage as an Incomplete Institution” (1978). Cherlin investigated divorce rates in remarriages and posited that a lack of standard solutions increased the failure rate.
- Variant spelling: re-marriage
Related Quotation
- “We need to know what the institutional links are between family and society which transmit social norms about everyday behavior. That is, we need to know exactly how patterns of family behavior come to be accepted and how proper solutions for family problems come to be taken for granted. And the recent rise in the number of remarriages after divorce may provide us with a natural laboratory for observing this process of institutionalization. As remarriage after divorce becomes more common, remarried parents and their children probably will generate standards of conduct in conjunction with the larger society. By observing these developments, we can improve our understanding of the sources of unity in married-and remarried-life” (Cherlin 1978:648).
Additional Information
- Family and Kinship Resources – Books, Journals, and Helpful Links
- Word origin of “remarriage” – Online Etymology Dictionary: etymonline.com
Related Terms
- covenant marriage
- deinstitutionalization of marriage
- divorce
- gray divorce
- marriage
- monogamy
- open marriage
- separation
- single-parent family
Reference
Cherlin, Andrew. 1978. “Remarriage as an Incomplete Institution.” American Journal of Sociology 84(3):634–50. doi:10.1086/226830.
Cite the Definition of Remarriage
ASA – American Sociological Association (5th edition)
Bell, Kenton, ed. 2014. “remarriage.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Retrieved February 9, 2025 (https://sociologydictionary.org/remarriage/).
APA – American Psychological Association (6th edition)
remarriage. (2014). In K. Bell (Ed.), Open education sociology dictionary. Retrieved from https://sociologydictionary.org/remarriage/
Chicago/Turabian: Author-Date – Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition)
Bell, Kenton, ed. 2014. “remarriage.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Accessed February 9, 2025. https://sociologydictionary.org/remarriage/.
MLA – Modern Language Association (7th edition)
“remarriage.” Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Ed. Kenton Bell. 2014. Web. 9 Feb. 2025. <https://sociologydictionary.org/remarriage/>.