The decline of marriage

　　婚姻的衰落

　　For richer, for smarter

　　結婚吧，為了更富有、更聰明

　　The traditional family is now the preserve of aminority

　　傳統家庭：少數人的堅持

　　MARRIAGE, and its many ups and downs, still exercises a powerful hold over newspapers,magazines and the airwaves. Nearly 23m Americans watched Prince William being joined in holymatrimony to Kate Middleton. Millions more have wallowed in the break-up of ArnoldSchwarzeneggers marriage after revelations that he fathered a son with a maid. And thetumescent tweets of congressman Anthony Weiner have stirred up endless speculation aboutthe health of his own year-old marriage and the forbearance of his newly pregnant wife.

　　婚姻、婚姻里的悲歡離合仍然強有力地占據著報紙、雜志的版面和廣播電視的節目。近2300萬美國人收看了威廉王子迎娶凱特?米德爾頓的神圣婚禮。更有數百萬人因阿諾德?施瓦辛格與女管家育有一個私生子被曝光而離婚一事感慨不已。而國會議員安東尼 溫納在微博上上傳自己勃起內褲照片后激起無數人猜測他剛剛才一年的婚姻是否良好、他最近懷孕的妻子是否容忍他的行為。

　　Less titillating are revelations about the sorry state of marriage across the United States. Datafrom the Census Bureau show that married couples, for the first time, now make up less thanhalf of all households.

　　美國人自己婚姻的糟糕狀況則不那么令人感到興奮。人口普查局的數據顯示已婚夫婦現在占全部家庭的比例不到一半，這是首次出現這種情況。

　　The iconic American family, with mom, dad and kids under one roof, is fading. In every statethe numbers of unmarried couples, childless households and single-person households aregrowing faster than those comprised of married people with children, finds the 2010 census.The latter accounted for 43% of households in 1950; they now account for just 20%. And thetrend has a potent class dimension. Traditional marriage has evolved from a near-universalrite to a luxury for the educated and affluent.

　　典型的美國式家庭是媽媽、爸爸和幾個孩子生活在同一屋檐下，現在這種模式正在逐漸消失。在每一個州，未婚伴侶、沒有子女的家庭和單人家庭的增長速度都比由有孩子的已婚夫婦組成家庭的增長速度快，2010年人口普查結果如是說。1950年后者占全部家庭的43%;現在只占20%。這種趨勢階級強極具說服力。傳統婚姻普遍被視為習俗，現在它已經進化為受教育人群和具有經濟實力的人群所享有的奢侈品。

　　There barely was a marriage gap in 1960: only fourpercentage points separated the wedded ways ofcollege and high-school graduates . The gap has since widened to 16 percentagepoints, according to the Pew Research Centre. ACensus Bureau analysis released this spring foundthat brides are significantly more likely to have acollege degree than they were in the mid-1990s.

　　1960年結婚率幾乎沒有差別：大學畢業和高中畢業生的結婚率只相差4個百分點。佩尤研究中心稱這個差別已經到16%。今年春天，人口調查局發表的分析稱新娘擁有一個大學學位的可能性比九十年代中期時大了很多。

　　Marriage has become much more selective, and thats why the divorce rate has come down,said Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia inCharlottesville. The project found that divorce rates for couples with college degrees are only athird as high as for those with a high-school degree.

　　位于夏洛茨維爾的弗吉尼亞大學的國家婚姻研究項目主任W. 布拉德福德?維爾科斯稱：選擇結婚對象時更加地精挑細選，這就是為什么離婚率降低了。該研究項目發現雙方都擁有大學學位的夫婦的離婚率是那些只有一方有高中學位夫婦的三分之一。

　　Americans with a high-school degree or less tellresearchers they would like to marry, but do not believe they can afford it. Instead, they raisechildren out of wedlock. Only 6% of children born to college-educated mothers were bornoutside marriage, according to the National Marriage Project. That compares with 44% of babiesborn to mothers whose education ended with high school.

　　學歷為高中或更低水平的美國人告訴研究者他們想結婚，但是認為自己不能承擔婚姻的責任。于是，他們撫養非婚生子女。國家婚姻研究項目稱接受過大學教育的母親的子女中只有6%是非婚生。這個數字在母親是高中畢業的子女中為44%。

　　Less marriage means less income and more poverty, reckons Isabel Sawhill, a senior fellow atthe Brookings Institution. She and other researchers have linked as much as half of the incomeinequality in America to changes in family composition: single-parent families are getting poorer while married couples are increasingly well-off. This is a striking gap that is not well understood bythe public, she says.

　　婚姻減少意味著收入減少、貧困增加， 布魯金斯學會的資深研究員伊莎貝爾?索希爾這樣認為。她和其他研究者把美國收入不均的一半因素與家庭構成的變化聯系在一起：單親家庭越來越貧困而已婚夫婦越來越富有。她說：這個差別非常明顯但是卻不為大眾很好地理解。

　　Do not expect the Democratic Party, however, to make an issue of the marriage gap in nextyears elections. Unmarried women voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama. You dont wantto suggest to someone who isnt married and has children that they should be married, saysMs Sawhill. That is a denigration of their lifestyle.

　　不過，別指望民主黨在明年的選舉中將婚姻差別做文章。未婚女性一邊倒地支持奧巴馬。你別想建議某個沒結婚又有小孩的人去結婚，索希爾女士說，那樣子是對她們生活方式的詆毀。

　　The decline of marriage

　　婚姻的衰落

　　For richer, for smarter

　　結婚吧，為了更富有、更聰明

　　The traditional family is now the preserve of aminority

　　傳統家庭：少數人的堅持

　　MARRIAGE, and its many ups and downs, still exercises a powerful hold over newspapers,magazines and the airwaves. Nearly 23m Americans watched Prince William being joined in holymatrimony to Kate Middleton. Millions more have wallowed in the break-up of ArnoldSchwarzeneggers marriage after revelations that he fathered a son with a maid. And thetumescent tweets of congressman Anthony Weiner have stirred up endless speculation aboutthe health of his own year-old marriage and the forbearance of his newly pregnant wife.

　　婚姻、婚姻里的悲歡離合仍然強有力地占據著報紙、雜志的版面和廣播電視的節目。近2300萬美國人收看了威廉王子迎娶凱特?米德爾頓的神圣婚禮。更有數百萬人因阿諾德?施瓦辛格與女管家育有一個私生子被曝光而離婚一事感慨不已。而國會議員安東尼 溫納在微博上上傳自己勃起內褲照片后激起無數人猜測他剛剛才一年的婚姻是否良好、他最近懷孕的妻子是否容忍他的行為。

　　Less titillating are revelations about the sorry state of marriage across the United States. Datafrom the Census Bureau show that married couples, for the first time, now make up less thanhalf of all households.

　　美國人自己婚姻的糟糕狀況則不那么令人感到興奮。人口普查局的數據顯示已婚夫婦現在占全部家庭的比例不到一半，這是首次出現這種情況。

　　The iconic American family, with mom, dad and kids under one roof, is fading. In every statethe numbers of unmarried couples, childless households and single-person households aregrowing faster than those comprised of married people with children, finds the 2010 census.The latter accounted for 43% of households in 1950; they now account for just 20%. And thetrend has a potent class dimension. Traditional marriage has evolved from a near-universalrite to a luxury for the educated and affluent.

　　典型的美國式家庭是媽媽、爸爸和幾個孩子生活在同一屋檐下，現在這種模式正在逐漸消失。在每一個州，未婚伴侶、沒有子女的家庭和單人家庭的增長速度都比由有孩子的已婚夫婦組成家庭的增長速度快，2010年人口普查結果如是說。1950年后者占全部家庭的43%;現在只占20%。這種趨勢階級強極具說服力。傳統婚姻普遍被視為習俗，現在它已經進化為受教育人群和具有經濟實力的人群所享有的奢侈品。

　　There barely was a marriage gap in 1960: only fourpercentage points separated the wedded ways ofcollege and high-school graduates . The gap has since widened to 16 percentagepoints, according to the Pew Research Centre. ACensus Bureau analysis released this spring foundthat brides are significantly more likely to have acollege degree than they were in the mid-1990s.

　　1960年結婚率幾乎沒有差別：大學畢業和高中畢業生的結婚率只相差4個百分點。佩尤研究中心稱這個差別已經到16%。今年春天，人口調查局發表的分析稱新娘擁有一個大學學位的可能性比九十年代中期時大了很多。

　　Marriage has become much more selective, and thats why the divorce rate has come down,said Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia inCharlottesville. The project found that divorce rates for couples with college degrees are only athird as high as for those with a high-school degree.

　　位于夏洛茨維爾的弗吉尼亞大學的國家婚姻研究項目主任W. 布拉德福德?維爾科斯稱：選擇結婚對象時更加地精挑細選，這就是為什么離婚率降低了。該研究項目發現雙方都擁有大學學位的夫婦的離婚率是那些只有一方有高中學位夫婦的三分之一。

　　Americans with a high-school degree or less tellresearchers they would like to marry, but do not believe they can afford it. Instead, they raisechildren out of wedlock. Only 6% of children born to college-educated mothers were bornoutside marriage, according to the National Marriage Project. That compares with 44% of babiesborn to mothers whose education ended with high school.

　　學歷為高中或更低水平的美國人告訴研究者他們想結婚，但是認為自己不能承擔婚姻的責任。于是，他們撫養非婚生子女。國家婚姻研究項目稱接受過大學教育的母親的子女中只有6%是非婚生。這個數字在母親是高中畢業的子女中為44%。

　　Less marriage means less income and more poverty, reckons Isabel Sawhill, a senior fellow atthe Brookings Institution. She and other researchers have linked as much as half of the incomeinequality in America to changes in family composition: single-parent families are getting poorer while married couples are increasingly well-off. This is a striking gap that is not well understood bythe public, she says.

　　婚姻減少意味著收入減少、貧困增加， 布魯金斯學會的資深研究員伊莎貝爾?索希爾這樣認為。她和其他研究者把美國收入不均的一半因素與家庭構成的變化聯系在一起：單親家庭越來越貧困而已婚夫婦越來越富有。她說：這個差別非常明顯但是卻不為大眾很好地理解。

　　Do not expect the Democratic Party, however, to make an issue of the marriage gap in nextyears elections. Unmarried women voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama. You dont wantto suggest to someone who isnt married and has children that they should be married, saysMs Sawhill. That is a denigration of their lifestyle.

　　不過，別指望民主黨在明年的選舉中將婚姻差別做文章。未婚女性一邊倒地支持奧巴馬。你別想建議某個沒結婚又有小孩的人去結婚，索希爾女士說，那樣子是對她們生活方式的詆毀。