Английский язык. Цыбина Е.А - 84 стр.

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84
That said, marriage is clearly under threat, both from divorce and from the
growing trend for unmarried cohabitation. The divorce rate is increasing, even since
the last significant changes in the divorce laws: from 11.6 per thousand in 1978
(143,667) to 12.8 per thousand in 1988 (152,633). The marriage rate is declining,
from 14.9 per thousand in 1978 (368,258) to 13.8 per thousand in 1988 (348,492).
And a growing proportion of marriages - about one in three -are remarriages
(partly because the number of people in a position to marry again has increased so
much). Unmarried cohabitation has never been more popular. The proportion of
women aged 18 to 49 who are cohabiting almost tripled between 1979 and 1988,
from 2.7 per cent to 7.7 per cent. The proportion of children born out of wedlock in
the UK has increased from 5.8 per cent in 1961 to 26.9 per cent in 1989. And
according to Gallup three adults in four no longer think that becoming pregnant is a
reason for a single woman to marry.
One problem is that marriage is increasingly perceived, in popular culture,
as lacking the spontaneity of unstructured love. Does reality bear this out? According
to the Observer/Harris poll, people who cohabit are two-and-a-half times more likely
to be ‘madly in love’ with their partners than married people (25 per cent to 10 per
cent).
Yet most other indicators suggest that married couples derive more happiness
from their relationships than non-married couples, and people’s perception of their
own marriages remains optimistic. The 1991 Observer/Harris poll showed that 91 per
cent of married people expect their own marriages to last until death. Their negative
feelings about marriage are reserved for other people - 66 per cent rate the average
marriage’s chance of succeeding as 50:50 or worse.
Last year the Family Policy Studies Centre caused a great stir by predicting that,
based on existing trends, 37 per cent of new marriages would end in divorce – an all-
time high. Another way of looking at this, as several advocates of marriage have
pointed out, is to say that nearly two-thirds of marriages will succeed.
NOTE
Talking about family and friends
I’ve got two brothers and a sister. My brothers are twins (= two children born to
one mother at the same time), and they are three years younger than me. I’m the
oldest and I take after my father (= I am similar to him in appearance and/or
character). My sister takes after my father in some ways, but she looks like my
mother (- her appearance is similar to my mother’s). We’re a close family (= we have
a good relationship/see each other a lot). My best friend Pete is an only child (=
without brothers or sisters); he spends a lot of time with us and he’s almost one of the
family.
Family names
Your parents give you a first name, e.g. James and Sarah are common first
names in Britain. Your family name, usually called your surname, is the one that all
the family have, e.g. Smith and Jones. Your full name is all the names you have, e.g.
Sarah Jane Smith.

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