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Kids of widows and wealthy, successful divorcees do worse in the aftermath of their mother's death or parents' divorce. It's not just genetics, even controlled for ancestry, class, wealth, parental background in every respect, children of single mothers do worse. For single fathers it's a mixed bag, but data on children raised solely by a dad (let alone a widower) is very limited and in many of these cases (every single one I've heard of personally) there's a female relative who steps in quickly as a maternal figure, whether it's a grandmother or aunt or sister. Often she moves in or the kids move to her. The same isn't necessarily true for father figures for kids who lose (or never have) a dad. Kids being raised without at least one central female figure in their childhood is highly uncommon.
... I mean, divorces don't come out of nowhere. There's usually something wrong with either parent that it happens.
The true test would be finding a country with a lot of widowed parents and looking at outcomes of their children.
Do you remember what paper found that ?
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Yeah, it seems to be quite a bit easier for widowers to remarry, and they are more motivated to remarry than widows. My best friend and I both lost our mothers when we were young and our dads quickly remarried—I think because they wanted someone to take care of the kids. I'd be surprised if single fathers are even really a thing.
I've long believed that women find it easier to transfer maternal instinct to non-biological children than men find it to transfer paternal instinct to them (although it's certainly possible in both cases). My just-so evopsych explanation is that women traditionally looked after children collectively whereas men taking more of an active role in child-rearing from a young age is more recent and largely coincides with the slow emergence of the nuclear family. I also think older men have less experience keeping a home, and so often face social pressure (from siblings, children, even friends) to remarry so they can keep their lives together and don't have to rely so much on family.
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