Read the text and express your ideas on the problems highlighted in it

READING TWO

Answer the following questions.

What arguments can you give for or against each of the following statements.

Speech activities

1. Chastity, perfect modesty in word, deed and even thought is so essential that without it, no female is fit to be a wife.

2. A wife is to last for life.

3. Gay and laughing women are the most insipid of souls and are generally down in the dumps.

4. A lazy woman must always be a curse.

5. Beauty is … a matter of taste.

6. A young woman should abstain from anything approaching boldness in her behaviour towards men.

1. Who do you think the article was written by – a male chauvinist or a supporter of women’s Lib?

2. Do you have the same opinion of the qualities a would-be wife should possess?

3. What in your opinion are the qualities to look for in a husband?

What’s wrong with marrying for Love

Falling in love is the expected and proper prelude to marriage. This means that you marry for love and that you work at it after marriage. Marriage is the final realization of a romantic attraction.

Getting married is primarily a romantic adventure with little prudent weighing of factors important for a lifelong union. Passionate attachment and anticipated happiness outweigh such considerations as cultural similarities and common social experience. We proudly declare that we no longer marry for convenience to promote a career or to please our families but to establish a desirable union that is voluntary and rests on personal choice.

Romance is beautiful. Wonderful. But is it the primary basis for selection of matrimonial mates on which to build a lifelong union? Many things must be considered. Young people need the counsel of their elders. Much as parental control is criticised in modern society, there are some things that can be said for it. Parents do know something about the nature and needs of their own children. They can judge their mate through the eyes of their greater age and experience. And they also seek the happiness of their children.

Does modern research throw any light on romance as the basis for mate selection? Romance according to some researchers is a process of fantasy formation when one idealizes another person ignoring the faults and magnifying the virtues of the loved one. After marriage there is usually a return to reality.

Studies of marital failure and success show quite clearly that marriage based on romantic attraction does not turn out as well as marriage based upon more comradely affection.

Supporting this conclusion are the other studies showing that the longer the period of acquaintance before marriage, the greater are the chances of marital success.

Perhaps most essential is the importance of similarity of social background for marital success.

This means that like should marry like. “Marriage, – writes a well-known family sociologist-involves living with a person, not merely loving him”. It is this prosaic fact that places romantic love in its proper proportions as a basis for marriage. Romance must be termed the prelude to the more sober and realistic consideration of a mate, but romance alone is not enough.

Cella Hall. For a Change. 2001

Дата добавления: 2017-01-14