This is a psychological subject that may well puzzle the best sociologist.
I have not tried to answer the question, but merely intended to offer it for discussion.
However, this I will say to my fellow-men: 'I know how truly and deeply you love your wives and sweethearts, but let me advise you: Don't try the experiment; don't put your love to so severe a test. Take the greatest care of the said wives and sweethearts, and see that no accident happens to them, that no disease disfigures them or permanently injures their health. This is wisdom.'
CHAPTER XI
MAN VERSUS WOMAN IN LOVE
How many times can a man and a woman love? — They love differently — A delicate question — 'Lucky dog!' — The inexorability of the virtuous woman.
Man is capable of love as earnestly as woman is; but love is not the whole business of his life, whereas it is a woman's. When a child, she loves her doll; when a girl, her mother; when a woman, a man. She can feed on love and die of it. When a mother, she loves her children; when she dies, surrounded by beloved grandchildren, she may say that her life has been well filled.
I believe that a woman can love more than once. I have known widows remarry, and love their second husbands with the same devotion as their first.
A man really loves once only. I knew a man under fifty who was married three times. He was a good and devoted husband to his three wives, but he never really loved but the second. If he dies suddenly without having time to take all his precautions, the portrait of his second wife will be found on his heart.