One afternoon recently, two【B1】______friends called to tell me that, well, t

One afternoon recently, two(26)unrelated friends called to tell me that, well, their marriages hadn’t made it. One was leaving his wife for another woman. The other was leaving her husband because "we thought it best".
    As always after such(27)increasingly common calls, I felt(28)helpless and angry. What had happened to those(29)solemn vows that they(30)swore on their wedding ceremony? Given the era and their feelings, their decisions probably made(31)sense. What angers me was the loss of years and energy. It was an anger similar to that I feel when I see(32)abandoned foundations of building projects—piled bricks and girders and a gash in the ground left to depress the passerby.
    When our grandparents married, seldom couples(33)divorced. "As long as we both shall live" was no joke. After their vows, couples learned to live with each other—not necessarily because they love each other, but because they were stuck, and it was better to be stuck comfortably than otherwise.
    Most of the external pressures that helped to enforce our grandparents’ vows have dissolved. Women can earn money and may enjoy sex, even bear children, without marrying. As divorce becomes more common, some divorcees even argue that divorce is(34)beneficial, educational, that the second or third marriage is "the best", and the only reason left to marry is love.
    In some respects, this freedom can be seen as social progress. In other respects, our rapidly-rising divorce rate and the(35)declining marriage rate represent a loss.