More surprising. perhaps, than the current difficulties of traditional marriage is the fact that marriage itself is alive and thriving. As Skolnick notes, Americans are a marrying people: relative to Europeans, more of us marry and we marry at a younger age. Moreover, after a decline in the early 1970s, the rate of marriage in the United States is now increasing. Even the divorce rate needs to be taken in this pro-marriage context: some 80 percent of divorced individuals remarry. Thus, marriage remains, by far. the preferred way of life for the vast majority of people in our society.

　　What has changed more than marriage is the nuclear family. Twenty-five years ago. the typical American family consisted of a husband， a wife， and two or three children. Now, there are many marriages in which couples have decided not to have any children. And there are many marriages where at least some of the children are from the wife's previous marriage, or the husband's. or both. Sometimes these children spend all of their time with one parent from the former marriage: sometimes they are shared between the two former spouses (配偶)。

　　Thus， one can find the very type of family arrangement. There are marriages without children: marriages with children from only the present marriage; marriages with “full-time” children from the present marriage and "part-time" children from former marriages. There are stepfathers, stepmothers, half-brothers, and half-sisters. It is not all that unusual for a child to have four parents and eight grandparents! These are enormous changes from the traditional nuclear family. But even so. even in the midst of all this， there remains one constant: most Americans spend most of their adult lives married.

    附：passage2譯文與重點詞匯

    也許，傳統的(traditional：conventional)婚姻(marriage)方式目前出了危機(difficulty：trouble)，但比這更令人驚訝的(surprising：shocking)是婚姻本身是充滿活力(alive：energetic)與興旺(thriving)的這一事實。正如史戈爾尼克所述(note：say，speak)美國人是喜歡婚配生活的民族：與歐洲人相比(relative)，我們中的大多數人會選擇結婚，且結婚的年齡偏小。而且，經過20世紀70年代初的一次下降(decline：drop)后，美國的結婚率正在逐步上升。在傾向婚配的情況(context：condition，situation)下，即使將離婚(divorce)率也考慮(take in：consider)進去，我們也會發現大約80%離過婚的人選擇再婚。因此，到目前為止，對社會上大多數的人來說，結婚仍然是人們首選的(preferred：enjoyable)生活方式。

    比婚姻變化更大的是核心( nuclear)家庭。25年前，典型的(typical: representative)美國家庭由丈夫、妻子和兩個或三個孩子組成( consist of: compose of).現存.結婚后有許多大婦決定不要小孩。

　　在許多婚姻中，至少有些孩子要么是妻子以前結婚乍的，要么是丈夫以前結婚生的，要么是雙方以前各自結婚生的。有時，這些孩子是和以前的父親或母親一起生活，有時候是和以前的( former: previous)父母親輪流生活。

　　因此，人們可以找到一種合適的家庭組合( arrangement: rank)方式。有的婚姻不要小孩;有的婚姻只要現在結婚生[FS:PAGE]的小孩：還有的人結婚后傘部時間和現在結婚的小孩在一起，部分時間和以前結婚生的小孩在一起。這些家庭中有縫父( stepfather)、繼母和同父異母、同母異父的兄弟姐妹。

　　所以，一個孩子擁有4個父母、8個祖父母完全不足為奇( unusual: abnormal. rare)，這些是傳統的核心家庭所發生的巨大(enormous: tremendous)變化。但即便如此，在所有這些變化之中(midst: middle)，仍然有一個因素始終不變( constant: lasting)：大多數美國成年人的時光是在婚姻中度過的。