[originaltext] Marriage is still a popular institution in the United States,

Marriage is still a popular institution in the United States, but divorce is becoming almost as "popular". Nevertheless, most American people get married at the present time. Fifty percent of American marriages end in divorce. However, four out of five divorced people do not stay single. They get married a see6nd time to new partners. Sociologists tell us that in the next century, most American people will marry three or four times in one lifetime. Alvin Toffler, an American sociologist, calls this new social form "serial marriages". In his new book Fortune Shock, Toffler gives many reasons for this change in American marriage. In modern society, people’s lives don’t stay the same for very long. Americans frequently change their jobs, their homes, and their circle of friends. So, the person who was a good husband or wife ten years ago is sometimes not as good ten years later. After some years of marriage, a husband and wife can feel that their lives have become very different, and they don’t share the same interests any more. For this reason, Toffler says, people in the twenty- first century will not plan to marry only one person for an entire lifetime. They will plan to stay married to one person for perhaps five or ten years, and then marry another. Most Americans will expect to have a "marriage career" that includes three or four marriages.