Key words on the topic: read, translate, train the pronunciation, memorize. Love, marriage, family, affection, infatuation, friendship, maturation, husband, wife, nuclear family

Love, marriage, family, affection, infatuation, friendship, maturation, husband, wife, nuclear family, extended family, single-parent family, blended family, step-mother, inheritance rights.

2. Read the text:

Love makes the world go round.

Love lives in cottages as well as in courts.

Keep your eyes wide open before

marriage, and half shut afterwards.

Take a vine of a good soil, and

the daughter of a good mother.

There are philosophers who, thinking that it (love) embraces every other, have accepted it as the highest of human values… Love is “a strong feeling of deep affection for sb/sth”.

What is the difference between love and infatuation? Infatuation is instant desire. Love is friendship that has caught fire. It takes root and grows – one day at a time.

Infatuation is marked by a feeling of insecurity. You are excited and eager but not genuinely happy. There are nagging doubts, unanswered questions, little bits and pieces about your beloved that you would just as soon not examine too closely. It might spoil the dream.

Love is quiet understanding and the mature acceptance of imperfection. It is real. It gives you strength and grows beyond you – to bolster your beloved. You are warmed by his presence, even when he is away. Miles do not separate you. You want him nearer. But near or far, you know he is yours and you can wait.

Infatuation says, “We must get married right away. I can’t risk losing him”. Love says, “Be patient. Don’t panic. Plan your future with confidence”.

Love is the maturation of friendship. You must be friends before you can be lovers. Love means trust. You are calm, secure and unthreatened.

Love is an upper. It makes you look up. It makes you think up. It makes you a better person than you were before.

Marriage is different from love. It is a good institution but a lot depends on the person you are married to.

There is no such thing as a good wife and a good husband – there is only a good wife to Mr. A. or a good husband to Mrs. B.

If a credulous and gullible woman marries a pathological liar, they may live together happily to the end of their days – one telling lies, the other believing them.

A man who cannot live without constant admiration should marry a “God, you are wonderful” type of woman. If ladies marry a title or a bank account, they must not blame their husbands for not being romantic heroes of the Errol Flynn type.

If someone buys a refrigerator, it never occurs to him that it is a bad refrigerator because he cannot play gramophone records on it; nor does not he blame his hat for not being suitable for use as a flower-vase.

You should know what you are buying. And as long as you do not play records on your refrigerator and do not put bunches of chrysanthemums into your hat, you have a reasonable chance of so-called happiness.

A successful marriage is the final realization of a romantic attraction. A good marriage is one that contributes freely and fully to personality development.

Definitions of the family vary considerably around the world and change over time. Generally, the family is defined as a relatively permanent social group of two or more people, who are related by blood, marriage, or adoption and who usually live together. Family life tends to be cooperative: the family is a most important primary group in which members share economic resources and day-to-day responsibilities.

Industrial societies recognize the nuclear family, a social unit composed of one or, more commonly, two parents and children. In preindustrial societies the extended family, a social unit including parents, children and other kin, is more common. A single-parent family is a household in which only one parent lives with a child or children. Single-parent families are also created after the death of a parent or when parents fail to get married. When single parents remarry, they create a blended family. A blended family is made up of the natural father or mother, a step-mother or step-father, and children of one or both of the parents. The prefix step- indicates a family relationship by marriage and not by blood.

The structural-functional paradigm suggests that the family has several important social functions. This explains why the family is sometimes described as the backbone of society.

Socialization. The family is the first agent in the socialization process, typically having more importance than peer groups, schools, churches, and the mass media. The personalities of each new generation take shape within the family, so that, ideally, children grow to be well-integrated and contributing members of the larger society. More over, family continues to socialize us throughout the life cycle. Adults learn and change within marriage, and, as anyone with children knows, parents learn as much from their children as their children learn from them.

Regulation of sexual activity. Every culture places some restrictions on sexual behaviour. Sexual intercourse is a personal matter of those involved, but is the basis of human reproduction and inheritance, it is also a matter of considerable social importance.

Social Placement. Within families children are born not only as biological beings, but also as members of society. Many important social statuses – including race, ethnicity, religion, and social class – are ascribed at birth through the family. Legitimate birth clarifies inheritance rights and allows for the most orderly transmission of social standing from parents to children.

Marital and emotional security. In ideal terms, the family protects and supports its members physically, emotionally, and often financially from birth to death.

3. Answer the following questions:

1. What is infatuation marked by?

2. Do you accept love as the highest of human values? Explain why or why not.

3. What is the difference between love and infatuation?

4. How can you define a “good marriage”?

5. Is love the maturation of friendship?

6. Does love mean trust?

7. What is family?

8. What kinds of family do you know?

9. Family has different functions, hasn’t it? What are they?

10. Is love an upper?

4.Mark these statements TRUE (T) or FALSE (F):