大学英语视听说2Unit3听力原文.docVIP

Unit3 Lead-in Generally speaking, marriages based on love are more successful than arranged marriages. In its long history, China has witnessed many tragic events arising from arranged marriages. However, we should not go to extremes and claim that all arranged marriages are failures. After all, in the past 2000-plus years, most of the arranged marriages did survive, and some of the couples did develop real love after their marriage. As for marriages based on love, they are not without problems. In the contemporary world, arranged marriages have almost disappeared. Boys and girls go out on dates and gradually develop a love between them before they get married. Strangely, the divorce rate has kept rising. And the reasons for divorce can be very simple: We can no longer communicate with each other very well or simply Ive gotten bored with him or her. In spite of the drawbacks of marriages based on love and the occasional successes of arranged marriages, it is obvious to all that the former are more in conformity with human nature. The traditional practice of arranged marriages should not be restored. Personally, I think a girl should not marry someone who is too old or too young for her. With a wide age gap, a couple may be physically incompatible, and their ways of thinking may differ largely from each other. But I will not go so far as to claim that marriages with a wide age gap will all fail. We can find many perfect matches between a young girl and a middle-aged man. Dr. Sun Yat-sen and Madam Song Qingling, and the famous writer Lu Xun and his young wife Xu Guangping are good examples. On the other hand, cases of a middle-aged woman marrying a much younger man seem to be rare. Probably such unions are less socially acceptable and the couple has to face greater social prejudice. Generally, we would do well to follow nature, and a girl should select her spouse from among people close to her own age. This will prevent many unnecessary difficulties. In the past, the