Ex. 2. Answer the questions on the text.

1. What did a typical British family use to consist of?

2. What caused changes in family life?

3. Do divorced people marry again?

4. How often members of a family meet?

5. What time is the traditional season for reunions? Why?

6. How can you comment on the number of people in British households?

7. What is the most common type of household in Great Britain today?

8. Why is there a great number of people who live on their own?

9. Who is the head of the family?

10. What is your general opinion about the typical British family?

 

Text: “American Family Trends”

 

The traditional American family consisting of a husband, wife and children is becoming less and less frequent. More people who are not legally married are living together. More and more children are being raised in single-parent families, by both poor women and by women who are professionally employed. Others postpone marriage and childbirth and as a consequence bear fewer children than women who marry earlier. Among the educated more and more couples are deciding to have fewer and fewer children. An exception to this trend occurs among Blacks, Hispanics and among the very poor. In 1990 the size of the average American family was 3.2 individuals.

In the American family the husband and wife usually share important decision making. American parents are very permissive. The old rule that “children should be seen and not heard” is not followed, and children are often allowed to do what they wish without strict parental control. Children are encouraged to be independent at an early age. Some people believe that American parents carry this freedom too far. Young people rarely live with their parents. Usually, upon graduation from high school children move out of the family home. If young people don’t break away from their parents by their late teens it is often regarded as a kind of unhealthy dependence. To reduce expenses young people frequently rent apartments or a house. They rent apartments or a house together and share other expenses.

While young people are getting married later in life, the divorce rate is increasing. Roughly 50% of all marriages in the United States now end in divorce. In cases of divorce the financial support required from the breadwinner will vary from case to case and if agreement is not possible between the two parties the court will decide. The cheapest way of getting a divorce is through the no-fault system, that is, two parties come to an agreement between themselves about the distribution of property. If there is no agreement then each hires a lawyer and the divorce will be very costly, up to $25,000 and more for legal fees alone.

The most ominous trend in American society is the increasingly high number of children being born to unmarried young people in poverty who are being raised without fathers. Two-thirds of black children are now being born in fatherless households. Undoubtedly these children are destined to add to the number of those in poverty and to those involved in delinquency and crime.

 

Ex. 1. Read and translate the text.

 

Ex. 2. Answer the questions on the text.

1. What is traditional family in the USA? Is it frequent?

2. Why do Americans have fewer children nowadays?

3. What is the size of the average American family?

4. How do American parents bring up their children?

5. Do you find the American pattern of independence good or bad for family relations?

6. Do young people live with their parents in the USA?

7. How many marriages in the USA end in divorce now?

8. What is the cheapest way of getting a divorce?

9. How do Americans solve the case of divorce if there is no agreement about the distribution of property?

10. What is the most ominous trend in American society according to the text?

 

Discussion

Ex. 1. Below are a few extracts from Understanding Britain by K. Hewitt concerning the British families and other relationships (see A). Compare the data with that given in other materials that tell us about the same aspects of people's life in the USA (see B).

A

1. Women in Britain have been giving birth later and later. But the biological clock ticks away leaving these women less and less time to have their family. Doctors can now treat for many physical and mental defects which appear more often in babies born to older parents.

2. Young men, for possibly the first time in history, at a disadvantage. More boy babies are born who now survive the weaknesses to which they used to succumb. So more boys are chasing fewer girls, and are suddenly proving very enthusiastic about marriage and long-term relationships while the girls hesitate. This is a reversal of traditional attitudes.

3. More than one in three marriages in Britain is now expected to end in divorce. Something has clearly been happening to the idea of marriage. Many children experience the divorce of their parents before they themselves grow up. And so the higher the divorce rate, the more unhappiness, instability and gloomy prospects for the future relationships of our young citizens.

4. More and more stable couples are choosing not to get married. The popularity of the institution of “living together” as a sexual couple is very great indeed. Such unmarried couples are also having their children, unmarried, but both taking responsibility for the child who is born, just as in marriage.

Now about a third of marriages end in divorce, and we can be fairly sure that at least the same proportion of serious couple “split up”.

5. There is a strong tendency for divorced and separated individuals to find another partner and settle down to another marriage or similar relationship. Single mothers exist – but not usually for very long.

Whatever the reasons, enthusiasm for marriage or a long-term relationship remains very high. It seems that the British are a romantic race. And if you ask the British what their “ideal” of life is, whether or not they themselves have achieved it, the “ideal” that comes top always is “a loving and kind marriage between equals”.

6. How does the non-homosexual majority of the British public feel about homosexuals? The majority seem to have complicated and ambivalent feelings; opinion polls on this question always demonstrate how confused most people are. Some popular papers make the lives of well-known homosexuals a misery. On the other hand there are many young radical people and many homosexuals themselves who say that “sexual preference is a matter of choice. No distinctions should be made.”

B

1. In a traditional American family the father goes out and works and the mother stays home and rears the children. But most families in the USA do not fit this image. The most common type of family now is one in which both parents work outside the home.

2. Many single adult Americans nowadays are waiting longer to get married. Women become more interested in getting married and starting a family as they enter their thirties. Today’s brides and grooms enter marriage in more skeptical frames of mind than before.

3. In the 1970s many couples living together without being married. For about ten years, the number of unmarried couples living together grew rapidly. At that time there was an increase in divorces.

4. Nowadays people who get married at later ages have fewer divorces. In the mid-1980s, more traditional marriage and family practices became once again widely accepted. Today, married couples are the fastest growing type of household in the United States. The number of marriages is rising. The number of babies has also been climbing steadily for the past ten years. Many experts see these trends as a sign that Americans are returning to the values of marriage and family. Still there is an increase in the number of families that are headed by only one person.

5. Many couples today want to be childless. The average household contains between two or three people. So families in the United States are getting smaller.