英语阅读爱情不是商品.docVIP

美联英语提供：英语阅读：Love Is Not Like Merchandise爱情不是商品 两分钟做个小测试，看看你的英语水平 /test/kuaisu.aspx?tid=16-73675-0 A reader in Florida, apparently bruised by some personal experience, writes in to complain, If I steal a nickels worth of merchandise, I am a thief and punished; but if I steal the love of anothers wife, I am free. 佛罗里达州的一位读者显然是在个人经历上受过创伤, 他写信来抱怨道: “如果我偷走了五分钱的商品, 我就是个贼, 要受到惩罚, 但是如果我偷走了他人妻子的爱情, 我没事儿。” This is a prevalent misconception in many peoples minds---that love, like merchandise, can be stolen. Numerous states, in fact, have enacted laws allowing damages for alienation of affections. 这是许多人心目中普遍存在的一种错误观念——爱情, 像商品一样, 可以 “偷走”。实际上，许多州都颁布法令，允许索取“情感转让”赔偿金。 But love is not a commodity; the real thing cannot be bought, sold, traded or stolen. It is an act of the will, a turning of the emotions, a change in the climate of the personality. 但是爱情并不是商品；真情实意不可能买到，卖掉，交换，或者偷走。爱情是志愿的行动，是感情的转向，是个性发挥上的变化。 When a husband or wife is stolen by another person, that husband or wife was already ripe for the stealing, was already predisposed toward a new partner. The love bandit was only taking what was waiting to be taken, what wanted to be taken. 当丈夫或妻子被另一个人“偷走”时，那个丈夫或妻子就已经具备了被偷走的条件，事先已经准备接受新的伴侣了。这位“爱匪”不过是取走等人取走、盼人取走的东西。 We tend to treat persons like goods. We even speak of the children belonging to their parents. But nobody belongs to anyone else. Each person belongs to himself, and to God. Children are entrusted to their parents, and if their parents do not treat them properly, the state has a right to remove them from their parents trusteeship. 我们往往待人如物。我们甚至说孩子“属于”父母。但是谁也不“属于”谁。人都属于自己和上帝。孩子是托付给父母的，如果父母不善待他们，州政府就有权取消父母对他们的托管身份。 Most of us, when young, had the experience of a sweetheart being taken from us by somebody more attractive and more appealing. At the time, we may have resented this intruder---but as we grew older, we recognized that the sweetheart had never been ours to begin with. It was not the intruder that caused the break, but the lack of a real relationship. 我们多数人年轻时都有过恋