英國女性看淡婚姻 婚否不再重要British women believe marriage no longer relevant

Some 31 percent think that marriage is no longer relevant, while 71 percent say that couples marry too quickly without thinking about the move carefully enough, according to a poll released Tuesday.

"This shift in attitude may be a testament to the fact that women feel liberated enough, sexually and socially, to not have towalk down the aisle, or it could be that today'scynicalattitude to almost everything has minimized marriage to anoutdated, over-romanticised practice," said psychologist Dr Linda Papadopoulos, commenting on the poll.

Most recent official statistics show that the number of marriages annually in England and Wales fell from 351,973 in 1981 to 270,700 in 2004.

They add that 54 percent of men and 50 percent of women are married, while 10 percent of men and nine percent of women live together.

The poll also explores women's attitudes to work -- 70 percent of women feel pressure to earn as much money as men, while one in 10 said they would be unlikely to quit their jobs to look after children, even if they did not need the money.

It also revealed that older women were less inclined to think that marriage should mean one partner for life than younger ones.

"Older women are, in fact, more cynical when it comes to their views on marriage," Papadopoulos said.

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拉斯維加斯取消深夜結婚

“結婚”妙語

(Agencies)

英國本周二公布的一項民意調查顯示，約31％的人認為婚姻已沒什么必要，71％的人認為很多人在沒有考慮清楚的情況下就草草結了婚。

心理學家琳達·帕帕多普洛斯博士對這項調查的結果進行了分析，她說：“對于婚姻態度的改變可能是因為女性在性和社會地位方面已獲得徹底解放，因此她們覺得結婚已沒什么必要；也可能是由于如今的人們無論對什么都抱著一種‘憤世嫉俗’的態度，因此結婚被‘貶’為一種過時、過于浪漫化的做法。”

最新官方數據顯示，英格蘭和威爾士一年內的結婚數從1981年的351973例下降到了2004年的270700例。

此外，54％男性和50％女性已婚，另有10％的男性和9％的女性在同居。

此項調查的內容還包括女性對于工作的態度，調查發現，70％的女性覺得要和男人掙錢一樣多很有壓力，十分之一的女性說，就算家里不缺錢，她們也不大可能辭職在家照顧孩子。

另外，與年輕女性相比，年齡較大的女性對“從一而終”看得較淡。

帕帕多普洛斯說：“事實上，年齡較大的女性對于婚姻的態度更加玩世不恭。”

Vocabulary:
walk down the isle: 結婚
cynical: scornful of the motives（憤世嫉俗的；玩世不恭的）
outdated: old-fashioned（過時的；不流行的）