student asking question

Can I use "he" instead of "one who" here? What's different between these two? 

teacher

Native speaker’s answer

Rebecca

"One who" in this case is referring to "someone who". In this context, the pronoun "he" is actually omitted right before "one who", so the full sentence should be "he is one who is unlikely to take a wife". "He is" is dropped because it is already implied and dropping it makes the sentence shorter and faster to say. You could drop "one who" here and just say "he is unlikely to take a wife", but "one who" is used to compare him to other people in general.

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