Marriage and Children
Late in life (1971), while Prime Minister, he quietly married Margaret Sinclair, a young woman thirty years his junior. They were incompatible, for her image of Trudeau-as-romantic-playboy was based entirely on false media hype; he was actually a workaholic and an intense intellectual with little time for family or fun, and she suffered from bipolar depression. After three children were born they separated in 1977 and were finally divorced in 1980. Their three children are Justin, Alexandre (Sacha), and Michel (1975–1998).
When his divorce was finalized in 1984, Trudeau became the first Canadian Prime Minister to become a single parent as the result of divorce. In 1991, Trudeau became a father again, with Deborah Coyne. This was his first and only daughter, named Sarah.
Read more about this topic: Pierre Trudeau
Famous quotes containing the words marriage and, marriage and/or children:
“Christianity as an organized religion has not always had a harmonious relationship with the family. Unlike Judaism, it kept almost no rituals that took place in private homes. The esteem that monasticism and priestly celibacy enjoyed implied a denigration of marriage and parenthood.”
—Beatrice Gottlieb, U.S. historian. The Family in the Western World from the Black Death to the Industrial Age, ch. 12, Oxford University Press (1993)
“In almost every marriage there is a selfish and an unselfish partner. A pattern is set up and soon becomes inflexible, of one person always making the demands and one person always giving way.”
—Iris Murdoch (b. 1919)
“Good mothers know that their relationship with each of their children is like a movable feast, constantly changing and evolving.”
—Sue Woodman (20th century)