>Would it have been highly unusual for someone to remarry four months
>after
>the death of their spouse, in the last quarter of the eighteenth
>century?
>Have any other subscribers found similarly brief mourning periods before
>remarriage?

Charles,

In the book, "Women's Life and Work in the Southern Colonies," by
Julia Cherry Spruill, 1938, she states (beginning on p. 155),
"Another feature of colonial marriages somewhat shocking to
twentieth-century sensibility was the number of unions made by the
same person and the quickness with which a deceased husband or wife
was succeeded by another." p. 156 "So great was the haste with which
a widower consoled himself with a new partner that sometimes he was
condoled upon the death of a former wife and congratulated upon his
choice of second at the same time." "Many examples may be given of
marriage within only a few months or even days after the burial of a
deceased partner."

This topic is discussed for several pages in this book but I think
the above statements answer your query.

Linda

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