Marriage Customs

Despite the recent growth in the number of divorces, we in the West still tend to regard courtship (求愛) and marriage as a romantic business. Boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, boy asks girl to marry him, girl accepts, wedding, flowers, big celebration.

But in other parts of the world things work differently. In India, for instance, arranged marriage is still very common. An intermediary (中間人), usually a married lady, learns that a young man wishes to get married and she begins to find him a suitable wife. The young couple meets for the first time on the day of the wedding.

In Japan, too, arranged marriages still take place. But things are organized in different way there. A girl wishes to find a husband, and the girl’s mother, or an aunt perhaps, approaches the mother of a suitable young man and the young couple are introduced. They get a chance to have a look at one another and if one of them says “Oh, no, I could never marry him or her”, they call the whole thing off. But if they like one another, then the wedding goes ahead.

In parts of Africa, a man is allowed to have several wives. Now that sounds fine from the man’s point of view, but in fact the man is taking on a great responsibility. When he takes a new wife and buys her a nice present, he has to buy all his other wives presents of equal value and, although we are obviously speaking of a male – dominated society, the wives often become very close and also, if there is disagreement in the family, the husband has three or four wives to argue with instead of just one.

It is true that American women brought up in the United States, who married Africans and went to live in Africa, have sometimes found it very difficult to take the role of the wife of an African living in African. Now most people, being used to the Western style of courtship and marriage, will think that this is the best system and the one with the greatest chance of producing a happy marriage. However, my observations have led me to believe that various forms of arranged marriages have just as much chance of bringing happiness to the husband and wife as our Western system of choosing marriage partners.

1．According to the passage, in the West,　　　　　 .

　 A．more and more people get divorced

　 B．fewer and fewer people get divorced

　 C．nobody gets divorced at all

　 D．50 percent of the married people get divorced

2．The word “arranged ” in Paragraph 2 probably means　　　　　 .

　 A．arranged themselves. 　　　 B．arranged well

　 C．arranged by the intermediary 　 D．arranged by God

3．According to Paragraph 4, the author thinks a man　　　　　 .

　 A．should not have more than one wife.

　 B．should have more than one wife.

　 C．with more than one wife will take one more responsibilities.

　 D．with more than one wife will be happier.