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1、当代美国婚姻和家庭模式的变化及影响The Changes and Influences of Marriage and Family Patterns in Modern AmericaAbstract: Family is the basic social institution and the bedrock of all societies. Family structure and family life can mirror the moral values of the society, its cultures, and its national characteristics.
2、 The American society has changed a lot since the 1960s in material wealth. The enormous material wealth and the development of science and technology have also pushed people to look for more self-fulfillment. As a result, people are more and more concerned about individual rights. The society as a
3、whole has become more tolerant toward people who do not follow the traditional cultural patterns. Meanwhile marriage and family patterns have experienced tremendous changes under the influence of these changes. The changes have tremendous influences on the American society, men, women, and children.
4、 Marriage and family patterns in our country have also experienced changes these years. Studying the changes of American marriage and family patterns can provide us some valuable information.Key words: American marriage; family patterns; changes; influences摘要：家庭是社会的基本单位，也是社会的基石。家庭结构和家庭生活亦可反映出社会的价值观，
5、文化特性和国民特征。20世纪60年代美国社会在物质财富方面发生了巨大的变化。物质财富的充裕，科学技术的迅猛发展促使人们追求自我享乐，整个美国社会对传统价值观的态度的转变影响了美国的婚姻和家庭模式。文章主要探讨了美国婚姻和家庭模式的变化，以及这些变化对美国社会和人们的生活产生的影响。研究美国婚姻家庭模式的变迁的经验结果对我们研究全球化时代中国婚姻家庭的变迁课提供有益的参考。关键词：美国婚姻；家庭模式；变化；影响ContentsI. Introduction.1II. Literature Review1III. The Changes of the Marriage .2A. The tende
6、ncy of late marriage2 B. High rate of divorce.2 C. Marriage between the same sexes.3D. Marriage between different races.3IV. Diverse Family Patterns.4A. Nuclear family.4 B. Blended family.5C. Dual-Employed family .5D. Single-parent family6E. Cohabitation.7F. Single life.7G. Child-free family.7H. Gay
7、 and lesbian family.8V. The Causes and Influences of the Changes.8 A. The causes of the changes.8 1. The changes of value.8 2. Materialism and competitive environment.9 3. The changes of family roles.94. Social toleration to the alternative lifestyle and the changes of laws.9B. The influences on soc
8、iety.101. Increasing the burden of woman102. The influences on children.11 3. Increasing the burden of the governments.11VI. Conclusion 12Works Cited. .13I. IntroductionSociety refers to the people who live in a country or region, their organizations, and their way of life. The American society has
9、changed a lot since the 1960s as the enormous material wealth after World Warpushes all groups of people to fight for their rights. The Civil Rights Movement and the Womens Movement changed significantly the social and economic conditions. The enormous material wealth and the development of science
10、and technology have also pushed people to look for more self-fulfillment. As a result, people are more and more concerned about individual rights. The society as a whole has become more tolerant toward people who do not follow the traditional cultural patterns. And marriage and family patterns have
11、experienced tremendous changes during these years, too. People have more choices than ever before and they can end a marriage if not satisfied and then remarry. Family patterns have been diversified with the prosperous economies, womens self-awareness, different attitudes toward social values, etc.
12、All the changes have great influences on the American society, children, men and women.II. Literature ReviewMarriage is the foundation of the growing family and family is the bedrock of the societies. The development of society and the changes of family patterns is a hot topic in America. The resear
13、chers pay close attention to the changes. There are many statistics about the rate of marriage, divorce and family patterns which show the changes of Americans attitudes towards them and the changes of the traditional values about marriage and family. In 1960, the pills were widely used in American,
14、 which helped control the womens pregnancy and the birth rate, and men and women felt more safe and free to their own sexual behavior (Wang 277). The married couple made up 74.8 percent of all household types in 1960, dropped to 65.4 percent in 1975, and is projected to drop further to 54.9 percent
15、by 1990. The estimates for the femaleheaded family went from 17.2 percent to 23.6 percent in 1975 and were projected to 29 percent by 1990. (Daniel 50) This article mainly talks about the causes and influences of the changes of the marriage and family patterns. Compared with the changes of American
16、marriage life and family patterns, China suffers the same problems increasing divorce rate, and marriage without child, etc. Our nation can learn from their changes, and avoids the bad situations exacerbating. . The Changes of MarriageWhat is marriage? Marriage is a legal union between a man and wom
17、an as husband and wife. Since the womens situation had changed a lot, the marriage changed, too. The traditional marriage pattern is that a married couple legally live together and give birth to their children. But there is a tendency that there are fewer and fewer people getting married or choosing
18、 to marry at a late age. More people end their marriage if they are unhappy. As many people fail in their marriage, divorce and separation have become much more common in recent decades. Divorce is on the increase, and there is a higher divorce rate, but many divorced people do eventually remarry.A.
19、 The tendency of late marriageFewer and fewer people would like to marry at an early age. Since 1960s the proportion of married men and women under 15 are far less than before and the proportion of no marriage experience keeps increasing. In 1970, there were 15.6 percent of white people over 18 and
20、older that had never been married, but by 1991, this figure had risen to 20.5 percent (Wang 492). A man and a woman may cohabit or live together without marriage or before marriage. In this case, man and woman are no longer bounded by the traditional marriage patterns and they are much free to lead
21、a life they dream of. Whats more, nowadays, women pay more attention to their own development, and they are not only restricted to the marriage and be a house wife any more. They have the abilities to walk out and hunt for good jobs to support themselves. People are aware of self-fulfillment and sel
22、f-worth; they would pursue their wonderful dreams instead of bearing the burden of family at the early age. B. High rate of divorce The enormous amount of wealth caused people to believe in more equality and social justice. Meanwhile, the ever rising expectation of women to be perfect wives caused a
23、nxiety among many of them. There was a tendency that people after World Warbecame less patient with the old tradition of the putting the family wellbeing first and began to demand more self-fulfillment. Women began to doubt if staying at home serving the need of their husband and children were all t
24、hey should do. With the Womens Movement, women had achieved equalities in political, social, educational, and economic life. Due to all the changes, women no longer need men to support them and become more and more independent. They can do what they want and what they like and fulfill their ambition
25、 on their own. They are struggling for the equal rights all the time, and legal divorce is part of them. As the freedom prevailed in America in early 1960s, the rate of divorce was on the continuous increase. Toward early 1980s, divorce was the ending of a marriage between husband and wife, and the
26、experts estimated that it would increase to 67 percent (Bureau of Census 68). Nowadays, society is more tolerant to the divorce, and many American have come to view divorce as a natural experience and make contributions to the high rate of divorce. C. Marriage between the same sexes Before 1960s, ho
27、mosexuals suffered a lot of discrimination and were considered as lunacy, and many of them were scared to unveil their true identity to the public. By 1960s, the homosexuals formed their own organization and struggled to obtain the equal right. In 1970s and 1980s, with the development of the campaig
28、ns of homosexual rights, American public become much understandingly and tolerant of the alternative lifestyle. Many states and federal government add the items of anti-sexual discrimination in the anti-discrimination policies and laws. When the U.S. Census was conducted 1990, it shows that 150,000
29、same-sex parents of the whole population cohabit in American in 1990s and 594,000 in 2000s. On February 4, 2004, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts struck down the state law which had banned same sex marriage. On May 17, Massachusetts became the first state to allow same sex marriage (Zhou 238). It
30、seems that the rights of homosexuals will be accepted one day. They will be regarded as the normal and live a happy life.D. Marriage between different races The United States has always been described as “melting pot” in which many different racial and ethnic groups have assimilated into one culture
31、. Actually many races remain their own traditions and for the most part of the melting has meant Americanization confronting to cultural patterns of the mainstream American society. So there is another description of America society-salad bowl, where the various racial and ethnic groups have remaine
32、d somewhat distinct and different from one another, creating a rich diverse country. There are many races in American society, such as WASPs-White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, Native Americans, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans. WASPs are the dominant race in American society an
33、d others are the minorities, all of them make great contribution to the development of America.Since 1960s, the number of marriage between different races is on the increase. By 1960s, all couples of different races were about 149,000, and increase to 651,000 by 1980. Whats more, the number of 2000
34、and 2003 has reached to 1,460,000 and 2,090,000 respectively.In general, the minorities are much easier to get married with other races which can be drawn from the declaration of racial identifications from two or more races. In 2000 U.S. Bureau of Census shows that the declaration of the native Haw
35、aii with other pacific island inhabitants, Indians, original Alaska, Asia Americans, and African Americans of two or more races are 54.4%, 39.9%, 13.9% and 4.8% respectively and the proportion of whites are only 2.5% (U.S. Census Bureau 7). Diverse Family Patterns Beginning in the late 1950s, a wave
36、 of social change swept through American life. Almost every American family was affected. The structure of American family had experienced tremendous changes over the past few years. At the beginning of the 20th century, the extended family-consisting of two or more adult generations of the same fam
37、ily sharing a common households and economic resources-was the dominant family pattern in the United States. Today, in the minds of most American, the American family has meant a nuclear family. There are also other types of family in America, such as blended family, child-free family, single-parent
38、 family, gay and lesbian family, cohabitation and independent living, etc.A. Nuclear family Nuclear family consists of parents and their children who live apart from other kin. In old days, a group of people in a big family lived together and shared the wealth together. But now, many families are he
39、aded by a married couple. Mother and father have an equal voice in making decisions. Children grow up in a complete family and enjoy a lot of happy times with both their parents. But the proportion of nuclear family which once has been the dominant family patterns has steeply dropped down in recent
40、20 years. In late 20th century, the nuclear American family that consisted of a breadwinner father, a homemaker mother and children were less than 15% of all American households. The rest of American lived in other family forms, such as child-free family, single-parent family, single life which in t
41、otal surpassed the dominant modern nuclear family showing the value of the bourgeoisie in 1950s (Stephanie 33).B. Blended family The increase in the divorce rate has led to the creation of the blended family, in which at least one member of adult couple is a stepparent. People divorce if they underg
42、o a bitter marriage, but they would like to build a new family again. Some of them choose to remarry with the people of the same experience to blend together two families into one, some of them will marry someone who never marries, and they do want to leave a new happy family life with others who se
43、em to be suitable life companies. It is estimated that slightly more than one American family in six is a blended family. If current trends continue into the 21st century, about one out of three adults in the United States will spend part of their lives in a blended family (Fan 231). In a dramatic c
44、hange from the traditional bitterness of divorce, many parted parents are doing their best to be cordial, even warm, especially on the most important days of the year. They want their lovely children to grow up in a happy and healthy environment. But it still has negative effects and this will be un
45、favorable to their children when they are growing up. A great number of peoples whose parents separated in their early age, and then build a new family eventually ended their marriage in divorce just follow the steps of their parents. But many couples and their children adjust successfully to their
46、remarriage, and they consider their new marriage and family to be a great improvement over the previous one.C. Dual-Employed family One important shift in American family patterns is that in a large majority of these families, both husband and wife have been employed and have double incomes. Womens
47、Limbers started a social and political movement which aimed to achieve womens liberation by organizing groups and campaigns and by causing individual women and men to change their attitudes. As a result, women have obtained many equal political and legal rights. The economic and domestic lives of women hav
