The primary difference between colonial and modern remarriages is that...

• A. Most fathers did not adopt the mother's children.
• B. People idolized the dead spouse.
• C. Most remarriages occurred after the death of a spouse.
• D. The first marriages lasted much longer.

Answer: (C)

Remarriage in colonial times mostly followed the death of a spouse because divorce was rare and not a common option. When a spouse died, widowed individuals often remarried to form new family households, so the pattern of remarriage centered on widowhood. In contrast, modern times see remarriage after divorce as a common pathway, since divorce is legally and socially accepted and accessible. That shift—from remarriage mainly after death to remarriage after divorce as well—is what distinguishes colonial patterns from modern ones.

Other choices don’t capture this fundamental shift. For instance, whether fathers adopted the mother’s children, or whether people idolized a dead spouse, or whether first marriages lasted longer, doesn’t describe the core change in what drives remarriage across eras.