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  3. More Americans are cohabiting—living together out of wedlock—than ever. Some

More Americans are cohabiting—living together out of wedlock—than ever. Some

游客2024-09-16  11
问题     More Americans are cohabiting—living together out of wedlock—than ever. Some experts applaud the practice, but others warn playing house doesn’t always lead to marital bliss. At one time in America, living together out of wedlock was scandalous. Unmarried couples who "shacked up" were said to be "living in sin". Indeed, cohabitation was illegal throughout the country until about 1970. (It remains illegal in 12 states, although the laws are rarely, if ever, enforced.) Today, statistics tell a different tale. The number of unwed couples living together has risen to a new high—more than 4.1 million as of March 1997, according to the Census Bureau. That figure was up from 3.96 million couples the previous year and represents a quantum leap from the 430,000 cohabiting couples counted in 1960.
    The bureau found that cohabiting is most popular in the 24-to-35 age group, accounting for 1.6 million such couples. Cohabitants say they live together primarily to solidify their love and commitment to each other, studies report. Most intend to marry; only 13 percent of cohabitants don’t expect to make their relationship legal. But the reality for many couples is different: Moving doesn’t lead to "happily ever after". Forty percent of cohabitants never make it to the altar. Of the 60 percent who do marry, more than half divorce within 10 years (compared with 30 percent of married couples who didn’t live together first).
    Cohabiting partners are more unfaithful and fight more often than married couples, according to research by the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society. Other studies have come to equally gloomy conclusions.
    Still, experts predict the number of cohabiting couples is likely to grow. As the children of the baby boomers come of age, they are likely to defer marriage, as did their parents. This will lead to more cohabitation and nontraditional families. Analyst Robert Knight of the Family Research Council agrees the trend will hold for the near future. Until people discover that living together has pitfalls, it won’t wane in popularity, says Knight, author of Age of Consent: The Rise of Relativism and Corruption of Popular Culture. Cohabiting has been portrayed with "careful neutrality" in the media, and Hollywood celebrities who move in and out of each other’s homes set the standard.
    But Warren Farrell, the San Diego-based author of Why Men Are the Way They Are, argues that living together is a good idea for a short period. "To make the jump from dating, when we put our best foot forward, to being married"—without showing each other the "shadow side of ourselves"—is to treat marriage frivolously, he says. [br] The best title of this passage would be
选项 A、A Research on Cohabitation.
B、Be Serious to Cohabitation.
C、Cohabitation: Past and Present.
D、Effects of Living Together out of Wedlock.
答案 B
解析 文中用数据描述了美国未婚同居的现象，表达了不同专家的看法。列举的专家看法中，有不赞成同居的，也有赞成同居的，这些看法都集中体现了一个重点：对待同居要慎重，故B为最合适的标题。文章并非作者的一个研究。只是作者收集各方面的研究后，对未婚同居现象的各种观点所做的一个整合，A不对；本文虽然对比提到了同居的过去和现在，但这只是行文过程中的一个细节，C作为标题不全面。本文并未提及同居导致的影响，D也可排除。
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