英语阅读 学英语,练听力,上听力课堂! 注册 登录
> 轻松阅读 > 时尚英语 > 时尚话题 >  内容

现代的婚姻,要付出更多努力

所属教程:时尚话题

浏览:

2019年11月20日

手机版
扫描二维码方便学习和分享
HERE lie both the great successes and great disappointments of modern marriage. Those individuals who can invest enough time and energy in their partnership are seeing unprecedented benefits. The sociologists Jeffrey Dew and W. Bradford Wilcox have demonstrated that spouses who spent “time alone with each other, talking, or sharing an activity” at least once per week were 3.5 times more likely to be very happy in their marriage than spouses who did so less frequently. The sociologist Paul R. Amato and colleagues have shown that spouses with a larger percentage of shared friends spent more time together and had better marriages.

现代的婚姻既可能使你收获伟大的成功,也可能令你遭遇巨大的失望。那些能够在婚姻关系中投入足够的时间和精力的人将可望摘得前所未有的甜蜜果实。社会学家杰弗里·迪尤(Jeffrey Dew)和W·布拉德福德·威尔科克斯(W. Bradford Wilcox)的研究证明,每周至少一次“与配偶独处,谈心或一起从事某项活动”的夫妻拥有美满婚姻生活的可能性是达不到这一标准的夫妻们的3.5倍。社会学家保罗·R·阿马托(Paul R. Amato)及其同事也发现,朋友圈交集较大的夫妻相处的时间较多,婚姻也更幸福。

But on average Americans are investing less in their marriages — to the detriment of those relationships. Professor Dew has shown that relative to Americans in 1975, Americans in 2003 spent much less time alone with their spouses. Among spouses without children, weekly spousal time declined to 26 hours per week from 35 hours, and much of this decline resulted from an increase in hours spent at work. Among spouses with children at home, spousal time declined to 9 hours per week from 13, and much of this decline resulted from an increase in time-intensive parenting.

但平均而言,美国人在婚姻中的投入有所减少——这已经损害了夫妻关系。迪尤教授指出,2003年时美国人与配偶独处的时间较之1975年时有所减少。在没有子女的婚姻中,夫妻相处的时间从每周35小时下降到了26小时,其主要原因是工作时间的增加。而在家有儿女的婚姻中,夫妻相处的时间从每周13小时下降到了9小时,这部分减少的时间基本上都花在了育儿之上。

现代的婚姻,要付出更多努力

Though this is not a specifically socioeconomic phenomenon, it does have a socioeconomic dimension. One of the most disturbing facts about American marriage today is that while divorce increased at similar rates for the wealthy and the poor in the 1960s and ’70s, those rates diverged sharply starting around 1980. According to the sociologist Steven P. Martin, among Americans who married between 1975 and 1979, the 10-year divorce rate was 28 percent among people without a high school education and 18 percent among people with at least a college degree: a 10 percentage point difference. But among Americans who married between 1990 and 1994, the parallel divorce rates were 46 percent and 16 percent: an astonishing 30 percentage point difference.

虽然这算不上什么特殊的社会经济学现象,但它包含着社会经济学层面的因素。当今美国人的婚姻中一个最令人不安的现象是,尽管在20世纪60年代和70年代,富人与穷人的离婚率均以类似的速度增加,但从1980年起,两者之间的差距急剧扩大。社会学家史蒂文·P·马丁(Steven P. Martin)指出,在1975年至1979年间结婚的美国人中,没受过高中教育的夫妻中的10年离婚率为28%,而在至少具备大专学历的夫妻中则为18%:相差10%。然而,在1990年至1994年间结婚的美国人中,上述离婚率分别为46%和16%:差异达到惊人的30%。

The problem is not that poor people fail to appreciate the importance of marriage, nor is it that poor and wealthy Americans differ in which factors they believe are important in a good marriage. The problem is that the same trends that have exacerbated inequality since 1980 — unemployment, juggling multiple jobs and so on — have also made it increasingly difficult for less wealthy Americans to invest the time and other resources needed to sustain a strong marital bond.

问题并不在于穷人认识不到婚姻的重要性,也不是因为美国的穷人和富人对构成美满婚姻的要素有着不同的定义。问题是,自1980年以来,人与人之间的不平等趋势日益加剧,失业、身兼数职等压力迫使这部分不够富裕的美国人愈发拿不出足够的时间和其他资源来维系紧密的婚姻关系。

What can be done? Government actions that reduce inequality and family-friendly work policies like on-site child care are likely to help strengthen marriage. But they are not the only options, particularly for individual couples.

对此我们可以采取哪些措施?政府采取行动来减少这些不平等,并推行有利于家庭的工作政策,如在公司内提供托儿服务等,可能有助于改善婚姻关系。但这并不是唯一的解决之道,具体到夫妻个人身上尤其如此。

First and foremost, couples can choose to invest more time and energy in their marriage, perhaps by altering how they use whatever shared leisure time is available. But if couples lack the time and energy, they might consider adjusting their expectations, perhaps by focusing on cultivating an affectionate bond without trying to facilitate each other’s self-actualization.

首先,夫妻们可以选择在他们的婚姻中投入更多的时间和精力,比如换个方式来打发他们共同的闲暇时间等。不过,如果实在没有时间或精力,他们也可以考虑调整对婚姻的期望,譬如不再强求彼此的自我实现,退而求其次将注意力集中在建立牢固的感情纽带之上。

The bad news is that insofar as socioeconomic circumstances or individual choices undermine the investment of time and energy in our relationships, our marriages are likely to fall short of our era’s expectations. The good news is that our marriages can flourish today like never before. They just can’t do it on their own.

坏消息是:只要社会经济环境或个人选择影响我们在婚姻中投入时间和精力,我们的婚姻就很可能达不到这个时代的期望。但也不是没有好消息:今天的婚姻完全可以呈现出前所未有的繁花似锦——只不过,想要获得美满的婚姻,总得付出一番努力。


用户搜索

疯狂英语 英语语法 新概念英语 走遍美国 四级听力 英语音标 英语入门 发音 美语 四级 新东方 七年级 赖世雄 zero是什么意思赣州市桃李春天(东江源大道)英语学习交流群

  • 频道推荐
  • |
  • 全站推荐
  • 推荐下载
  • 网站推荐