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In the past, families tended to stay together. They felt it was their duty to do this and that marriage was for life. Divorce was not socially acceptable. It was a commonly held view that a bad marriage was better than no marriage at all.
In Britain, as in many industrialized societies, there has been a steady rise in the numbers of divorces. The Second World War disrupted a lot of marriages, due to enforced separation and hasty marriages which were later regretted. Immediately after the war there were a record number of divorces and the proportion of marriages involving a divorced partner grew from 2% in 1940 to 32% in 1985.
Legal changes in this century have made it much easier to get a divorce. The most dramatic change resulted from the 1971 divorce law. The law stated that there needed to be only one reason for a divorce petition - the “irretrievable breakdown of marriage." This was a much wider category than the previous ones of cruelty, insanity, desertion or adultery.
The change in the law had an immediate effect. In 1972 there were over 1 19000 divorces in England and Wales and the rate has continued to rise. The total number in 1990 was over 153000, around 2% higher than in 1989. Proposed laws may make divorce even easier.
Couples can now afford the legal side of getting and surviving a divorce more easily than at any time in the past. However, for many families it is still an economic disaster as well as being emotionally difficult.
Another possible reason behind the rise in the divorce rate is the changing attitude to marriage itself.
The traditional Christian approach to marriage has been against divorce. As the Church becomes less influential in the UK, the view of marriage as a union for life has weakened. The result is that the break-up of a marriage is seen as less of a moral crisis and more as a matter of personal happiness.
Perhaps the people most affected by a divorce are the children. According to current forecasts,about 20% of children in Britain will experience family breakdown by the age of 16. There has been growing concern for such children, who are usually between the ages of five and ten. Recent laws have indicated that first consideration should be given to the welfare of the children when making financial arrangements after a divorce. If a marriage is going through a troubled time, the partners may ask for help from the voluntary counselors of an organization which is called Relate (formerly the Marriage Guidance Council).
[单选题]
A.People in the past didn't like the idea of divorce.
B.The author believes that people in the past all had happy marriages.
C.People in the past would try their best to maintain a marriage.
D.People in the past believed that once you were married to somebody, it
Was your responsibility to keep the marriage for the whole life.
[单选题]
A.The war forced people to get married again with a divorced partner.
B.During the war, husbands and wives had to separate from each other.
C.Many people went into the war.
D.2% of the men went to the fighting.
[单选题]
A.cruel
B.resistible
C.irretrievable
D.dramatic
[单选题]
A.Divorce is taken as an emotional disaster.
B.People don't regard marriage as something one has to stick to for the rest of one's life.
C.People think it is against morality to separate from one's married partner.
D.Everyone accepts the idea of divorce.
[单选题]
A.Divorce for personal happiness
B.Legal changes and marriage
C.Marriage and divorce
D.The rising divorce rate
