Moresurprising,perhaps,thanthecurrentdifficultiesoftrad...

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More surprising, perhaps, than the current difficulties of traditioanal marriage is the fact that marriage itself is alive and thriving(兴盛)。As Skolnick notes, Americans are marrying people----relative to Europeans, more of us marry and we marry at a younger age. Moreover, after a decline in the early 1970s, the rate of marriage in the United States is now increasing. Even the divorce rate needs to be taken in this pro-marriage context: some 80percent of divorced individuals remarry. Thus, marriage remains, by far, the preferred way of life for the vast majority of people in our society.

What has changed more than marriage is the nuclear family. Twenty-five years ago, the typical American family consisted of a husband, a wife and two or three children. Now, there are many marriages in which couples have decided not to have any children. And there are many marriages where at least some of the children are from the wife’s previous marriage, or the husband’s, or both. Sometimes these children spend all their time with one parent from the former marriage; sometimes they are shared between the two former spouses.

Thus, one can find the very type of family arrangement. There are marriages without children; marriages with children from only the present marriage; marriages with full time children from the present marriage and part time children from former marriages. These are stepfathers, stepmothers, half-brothers, and half-sisters. It is not all the unusual for a child to have four parents and eight grandparents! There are enormous changes from the traditional nuclear family. But even so, even in the midst of all this, one thing remains constant: most Americans spend most of their adult lives married.

44. By calling Americans marrying people the author means that________.

A. more of Americans, as compared with Eroupeans, prefer marriage and they accept it at a younger ate.

B. Americans expect more out of marriage than Europeans

C. there are more married couples in USA than in Europe

D. Americans are more traditional than Europeans.

45. Which of the following can be presented as the picture of today’s American families?

A. A typical American family consists of only a husband and a wife.

B. Many types of family arrangements have become socially acceptable.

C. Americans prefer to have more kids than before.

D. There are no nuclear families any more.

though great changes have taken place in the structure of American families_______.

A. the functions of marriage remain unchanged