Needed: road map for the marital journey

By Marilyn Gardner

Words and Phrases

wedding – свадебное торжество

to embark on a journey – пуститься в плавание

marital terrain –зона, страна супружества

divorce rate – уровень разводов

to weather inevitable storms – (образно) выстоять в неизбежных штормах

a successful marriage can be taught – семейному счастью можно научить

to misname – неправильно называть

to mislead – вводить в заблуждение

restlessness – беспокойство

to challenge the popular notion – оспаривать распространенное понятие

no marriage is an island – супружество – не остров в океане

"All weddings are similar, but every marriage is different," according to the English novelist John Berger.

After the final vows have been spoken and the last wedding guests have departed, each bridal couple embarks on a journey without any map of the marital terrain. For better or worse, they must largely chart their own course, armed with love and hope but no real training.

No wonder the divorce rate is so high, some marriage experts say with a sigh. Newlyweds, they insist, need guidance.

"Couples know how to court, get engaged, and have a wedding," says Diane Sollee, director of the Coalition for Marriage, Family, and Couples Education in Washington, D.C. "But it's as though the movie ends with the honeymoon. They don't know how to go beyond that."

To help them, nearly 2,000 family therapists, researchers, lawyers, judges, and clergy are gathering in Reno, Nev., Thursday for the seventh annual Smart Marriages conference, organized by the coalition. In sessions with intriguing titles such as "Who's got time to be married?" "Guerrilla divorce busting," and "Reviving marriage in the black community," they will spend four days exploring ways to help couples weather inevitable storms and form happy, lasting unions.

Convinced that the skills needed for a successful marriage can be taught, Ms. Sollee, a marriage and family therapist, founded the organization in 1996. She describes it as nonpartisan, a blend of conservatives and liberals, "the churched and the unchurched."

When she started, the term "marriage education" didn't even exist, Sollee says on the phone, her voice still registering amazement. Now she wants all states to follow Florida's lead in mandating marriage classes in high school. She is also urging the federal government to create a public education campaign, explaining the benefits of marriage and outlining what to expect in a good marriage. She points to precedents in public-health messages about smoking and drunken driving.

Several stages of marriage are misnamed, which misleads couples, Sollee charges. The first two years, often called the honeymoon period, actually represent the hardest time, when divorce rates are highest. "We should call that the 'clash of civilizations' phase," she says with a wry laugh. "Couples need all their best skills to manage disagreements." The real honeymoon, she thinks, is more likely to come when the nest empties.

And instead of the proverbial seven-year itch, Sollee often sees signs of restlessness at the 14- to-16-year mark. When children reach adolescence, couples have more to disagree about, and the intensity of disagreement increases.

Yet disagreements have their place. In a good marriage, she explains, "you've created a team, with two sets of perspectives, two histories, two extended families, two ways of thinking about things and weighing in with care and passion about decisions."

The most important predictor of marital success, she adds, is the ability to manage those disagreements.

Sollee challenges the popular notion that a good marriage is a matter of luck - that people either "get lucky" and find the right person or they don't. "We thought the bad marriage, where you married the wrong person, should end," she says. "But when we saw that second marriages had a higher failure rate, and third had an even higher rate, it just wasn't adding up."

Although each marriage is different, as Berger states, Sollee notes that the same issues arise for every couple: money, children, other people (relatives, friends), sex, and time (work, chores, and leisure). Currently, 40 percent of all marriages in the United States involve remarriages for one or both adults.

The good news, according to a just- released report from the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, is that the percentage of children in families with two married parents has inched up from 68 to 69 percent - the first increase in decades.

Yet the report also cautions that marriage is shifting from an institution dedicated to bringing up children to a "couples relationship," designed to fulfill the emotional needs of adults.

Even so, Sollee, who has two grown sons and five grandchildren, remains ever the optimist. "We're at a new level this year," she says, her voice dancing.

Then, summing up the philosophy that drives her tireless work, she paraphrases John Donne. "No marriage is an island," she says. "We are all affected not only by our own marriages and divorces, but by those around us."

from the June 25, 2003 edition –

www.csmonitor.com Copyright © 2003 The Christian Science Monitor.

Задания к тексту

1. Проработайте лексику, данную перед текстом. Прочитайте текст, не пользуясь «Англо-русским словарем».

2. Найдите, где в тексте говорится о следующем:

- в высшей школе должны быть обязательные программы по семейной жизни;

- начало супружества как раз и есть самое трудное время;

- описывается второй критический период супружества;

- перечисляются вопросы, общие для всех семей;

- собственный семейный опыт миссис Солей;

3. Переведите на русский язык некоторые, по-вашему, интересные тезисы в разных частях текста. Попросите одногруппника найти их в тексте по-английски.

4. Выпишите необходимый набор лексики для кратчайшего тезисного изложения текста.

UNIT 18

Тематика: международное право

Текст: Непрост вопрос корейский

'The Greatest of Great Men'

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF,January 7, 2003

Words and Phrases

like synchronized robots – как заведенные роботы

to give up his uranium program – прекратить осуществление программы по урану

yawned through a famine – допустить голод (в стране)

put backbone – создать надежную основу

wildly exaggerated – невероятно преувеличен

on occasion even fired at each other – случалось, палили друг в друга

nuclear warheads – ядерные боеголовки

with nothing else to keep its economy going – не имея больше ничего для роста экономики

despite the administration's legitimate concerns – несмотря на озабоченность юридической стороной вопроса

While in North Korea years ago, I barged into as many private homes as possible, and every single one had The Speaker.

The Speaker is like a radio, but permanently on and without a choice of stations. It's the electronic umbilical cord from the Great Leader, waking citizens up each morning and putting them to bed each evening with a mix of heroic songs, denunciations of "the American war-maniacs" and tributes to Kim Jong Il, "the greatest of great men produced by heaven."

(Oops. Now North Koreans are going to wake up to hear The Speaker declare that even the imperialist reactionary New York Times has hailed the Great Leader as, quote, the greatest of great men, unquote.)

The Speaker is a reminder that North Korea is like no other country in the world today. It was eerie to interview groups of North Koreans and then hear them praise Kim Jong Il in unison, like synchronized robots, a feat of hagiography unmatched except in Washington when White House aides give interviews.

It's also a reason that our North Korea policy seems bound to fail. Since October the White House has tried to use economic pressure to squeeze the Great Leader to give up his uranium program. Economic pressure? In a country so regimented and totalitarian that its leaders yawned through a famine that killed two million people in the 1990's?

As one of the few Americans who have traveled around both North Korea and Iraq, I believe the problem is far deeper than just a muddle of our priorities. The White House's champing at the bit to invade Iraq alarms me, but I have to admit that so far the champing has had an excellent effect: It has put backbone into the United Nations, returned inspectors to Iraq and made containment of Iraq a more viable option.

On the other hand, the White House North Korea policy is baffling and is aggravating the crisis.

My guess is that President Bush is deferring North Korea until Iraq is out of the way, and he's hoping that Chinese pressure will bring North Korea around. It won't. China won't squeeze North Korea because it doesn't want a collapsed neighbor and millions more refugees.

Moreover, China's influence on North Korea has always been wildly exaggerated. North Koreans speak openly of their contempt for Chinese officials, and Chinese and North Korean border guards have on occasion even fired at each other. I realized the strains a decade ago when one North Korean introduced me to another by saying "The Chinese government hates Mr. Kristof" — and they both beamed and pumped my hand warmly.

Unless the administration switches gears, here's what may happen: North Korea will reprocess spent fuel at its Yongbyon reactor, giving it enough plutonium for five to eight nuclear warheads by May 1. The North will also resume construction of a much bigger reactor at Taechon, accelerate its enriched uranium program, possibly drop out of the Nonproliferation Treaty, and test a Taepodong 2 missile that, in three stages, could reach New York (although it might be so inaccurate that it would miss and wipe out Newark).

In five years, North Korea could have 100 nuclear weapons and be churning out more like a fast-food chef. With nothing else to keep its economy going, North Korea will peddle them to the highest bidder ("One free Taepodong 2 missile with every three warheads you buy!")

This scenario is so horrendous that by late spring the Pentagon will be preparing options for a military strike on Yongbyon, even though President Bush has sensibly resisted that approach so far because the result could be another Korean War.

And this is, as Colin Powell calls it, "not a crisis"?

The only way out that I can see is to negotiate with North Korea, despite the administration's legitimate concerns about rewarding bad behavior. We could save face by getting Vladimir Putin to sponsor an international conference on North Korea, and then working out a deal in which the Great Leader verifiably gives up his nuclear and long-range missile programs, while the West offers normalization, trade, Asian Development Bank loans and pledges of nonaggression.

This would be a deeply unsatisfying solution, but it is less unsatisfying than the options we're now speeding toward: a nuclear factory peddling bombs on the North Korean Ebay, or Korean War II.

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Задания к тексту

1. Проработайте лексику, данную перед текстом. Прочитайте текст, не пользуясь «Англо-русским словарем».

2. Найдите, где в тексте говорится о следующем:

- Великий Кормчий пробуждает народ утром по радио, а вечером кладет его спать;

- Корейцам внушается, что они – исключительная страна в мире;

- автор статьи озабочен предстоявшими планами Вашингтона напасть на Ирак;

- выражается уверенность, что Китай не будет давить на Корею (определите, почему?)

- рассказывается о перспективах создания Кореей ядерного оружия, но вряд ли оно будет обладать высокой точностью поражения цели;

- с Северной Кореей надо садиться за стол переговоров, сколь это ни тяжело морально.

3. Переведите на русский язык некоторые, по-вашему, интересные тезисы в разных частях текста. Попросите одногруппника найти их в тексте по-английски.

4. Выпишите необходимый набор лексики для кратчайшего тезисного изложения текста.

UNIT 19

Тематика: культура

Текст: Когда говорит Толстая