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  3. In the beginning, E. Mavis Hetherington was looking for as much pathology as

In the beginning, E. Mavis Hetherington was looking for as much pathology as

游客2023-12-17  29
问题    In the beginning, E. Mavis Hetherington was looking for as much pathology as the next person.
   It was the early 1970s, with the American family in free fall, and she fully expected that her just-launched study. of the impact of divorce would find dysfunction and plenty of it: parents unable to cope, maladjusted children with long-term difficulties. By almost any measure-emotional, social or ecademic-"we expected them to blow it."
   Yet here’s the surprising thing about her families, with all their couplings and uncouplings and even recouplings during the years that followed: the vast majority of parents rebounded from the pain and upheaval. Resiliency overshadowed pathology. And by the time the children were young adults, considering marriage and families of their own, Hetherington discovered at least 75% coping fairly well--some very well--with life.
   Divorce, it seems, is not predestined.
   Now at the close of her pioneering career, Hetherington, 75, wants to get the word out. More than that, with the publication of For Better or for Worse: Divorce Reconsidered, she wants to change the public debate about divorce.
   Her book offers reassurance to the millions of Americans who don’t make it till death does part them. More than 40% of marriage end in divorce, down from the high record of the 1980s hut hardly a statistic for celebration. The most decisive aspect has long centered on the harm inflicted on children-irreparable damage, some researchers contend.
   Hetherington, a University of Virginia professor, believes she offers "a more hopeful look, a more realistic look" at the consequences. She says the hook, authored with New York writer John Kelly, is neither anti-marriage (though angry e-mails already are accusing her of such) nor pro-divorce. Rather, it explains the challenges people face and the diverse choices they make. It doesn’t ignore the downside. While most children adapt and adjust to their parents’ split, she says, 20% to 25% are left deeply scarred.
   "I harbour no doubts about the ability of divorce to devastate," she writes. "It can and does ruin lives. But that, I also think much current writing on divorce--both popular and academic--has exaggerated its negative effects and ignored its sometimes considerable positive effects."
   After three decades exploring the most important nexus of human relations, through the stability or dissolution of nearly 1,400 marriages, she wishes others weren’t so skeptical, "Why are people so afraid to say that in the long run, people end up living reasonable constructive lives?"
   Hetherington officially retired three years ago. The emeritus title relieved the 80-hour weeks she’d maintained at the university since her sons were little. She continues to write scholarly article, rising at 4 a.m. to begin work in her study--in Longhand, on yellow legal pads--and still lectures internationally.
   Hetherington knows that recasting the way America thinks about divorce won’t be easy or politically popular. The pendulum swung far right during the 1990’s, with lawmakers debating, and. sometimes passing, measures to encourage couples to-stay married and prevent them from divorcing too quickly.  "It’s very hard to legislate family relations," Hetherington says, as dubious now as then. "If we could legislate family relations, we wouldn’t have people getting married with these unrealistic expectations about marriage."
   Far better to understand the dynamics that sustain and threaten families. Far better, she writes, to accept that "divorce is a reasonable solution to an unhappy, acrimonious, destructive marital relationship." Instead of a narrow focus on the hazards, why not acknowledge that it can be an opportunity to build a better life?
   "It isn’t a matter of whether the glass is half empty or half full. In the long run," she concludes, "the glass is three-quarters full of reasonably happy and competent adults and children, who have been resilient in coping with the challenges of divorce." [br] The authors of the book For Better or for Worse: Divorce Reconsidered intend to______.
选项 A、make Americans more confident about getting divorced and have a better life
B、support divorce but is not anti-marriage
C、offer some alternatives on how to avoid divorce
D、understate the suffering inflicted on children of divorced parents
答案 A
解析 第五段谈到Professor Hetherington出书的目的是想改变人们对离婚的看法，从而对离婚的后果有更乐观、更现实的看法(a more hopeful look，a more realistic look)。第八段中她还指出人们总是夸大离婚的负面影响而忽视其正面的影响。接着在第九段她提出“为什么人们这么害怕承认离异家庭的成员最后总是生活得不错呢?”由此可见，她的目的是想让人们相信离婚后仍能生活得好。因此A是正确答案。
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