早稲田法 2016 I

I Read the passage and answer the questions below.

① In the 1990s, Stephanie Coontz, an American social historian, noticed an increased number of questions from reporters and audiences asking her if the institution of marriage was falling apart. She didn't think it was, and was surprised by how everyone believed in a mythical Golden Age of Marriage and saw increasing divorce rates as evidence of the dissolution of this glorified past. She decided to write a book discrediting the notion and proving that the ways in which humans think about and construct marriages have always been in flux.

② What Coontz found was even more interesting than she'd originally expected. In her fascinating book, Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage, she surveys 5,000 years of human habits, from the ancient past up until the present. She shows our matrimonial arrangements to be more complex and varied than could ever seem possible. Coontz had long known that the nuclear family model popular in the 1950s and 1960s ―that is, a husband earning a salary and a housewife raising their children ―had only been momentary. Like many historians, she couldn't understand how people had become so attached to an idea that had developed so late and been so short- lived.

③ For thousands of years, marriage had been a primarily economic and political contract between two people, negotiated and overseen by their families and communities. It took more than one person to make a farm or business thrive, and so a potential mate's skills, resources, thrift, and industriousness were valued as highly as personality and attractiveness. This was true of all social classes. In colonial America, wealthy merchants entrusted business matters to their wives while off at sea. Sailors, vulnerable to the unpredictability of seasonal employment, relied on their wives' steady income as domestic helpers in elite households. Two-income families were the norm.

④ Not until the 18th century did labor begin to be divided sharply by gender: wage-earning for the men and unpaid maintenance of household and children for the women. Coontz notes that as recently as the late 17th century, women's contributions to the family economy were openly recognized. Advice books back then urged husbands and wives to share domestic tasks. But as labor became separated, so did people's spheres of life experience ― the workplace versus the home ―the former based on reason and action, the latter on compassion and comfort. It was not until the postwar economic gains of the 1950s that a majority of American families could afford to live off a single breadwinner.

⑤All of this was intriguing, but even more surprising to Coontz was the realization that those alarmed reporters and audiences might have recognized something important. Coontz still didn't think that marriage was falling apart, but she came to see that it was undergoing a transformation far more radical than anyone could have predicted. She concluded that our current attitudes and arrangements regarding marriage are without precedent. "Today, we are experiencing a historical revolution every bit as wrenching, far-reaching, and irreversible as the Industrial Revolution," she wrote.

⑥ With respect to what people want and expect from marriage and relationships, all the old ways have broken down. Firstly, Americans keep postponing marriage. In 1960, the average age of first marriage in the U.S. was 23 for men and 20 for women; now it is 28 and 26. Today, a smaller proportion of American women in their early 30s are married than at any other point since the 1950s. We're also marrying less. In 1997, 29 percent of "Generation X" was married; among today's "Millennials," that figure has dropped to 22 percent. (Compare that with 1960, when more than half of people aged between 18 and 29 had already married.) These numbers reflect major attitudinal shifts. According to one study, 44 percent of Millennials and 43 percent of Generation X think that marriage is becoming obsolete.

⑦ Even more significantly, women no longer need husbands to have children, nor do women have to have children if they don't want to. Being a mother in a nuclear family need not be the defining feature of womanhood anymore; today, 40 percent of American children are born to single mothers. This isn't to say all those women preferred that path, but it has helped to reduce the stigma against single motherhood. Just as single motherhood is no longer a disgrace, motherhood itself is no longer compulsory. Since 1976, the percentage of women in their early 40s who have not given birth has nearly doubled.

⑧ Foremost among the reasons for all these changes in family structure are the gains in the women's movement. Over the past half century in the U.S., women have steadily caught up to ―and are in some ways surpassing ―men in education and employment. From 1970 to 2007, women's earnings grew 44 percent, compared with just six percent for men. It's true that, in 2008, women still earned just 77 percent of what men earned, but that figure doesn't account for the difference in hours worked, or the fact that women tend to choose lower-paying fields like nursing or education. A 2010 study of single, childless urban workers between the ages of 22 and 30 found that the women earned eight percent more than the men. Women are also more likely to go to college: in 2010, 55 percent of all college graduates aged between 25 and 29 were female.

[Adapted from Kate Bolick, "All the Single Ladies," The Atlantic Monthly (Nov. 2011).]

( 1 ) Choose the best way to complete the following sentences about Paragraphs ① to ②.

1 In Paragraph ① the writer mainly

2 In Paragraph ② the writer mainly

3 In Paragraph ③ the writer mainly

4 In Paragraph ④ the writer mainly

5 In Paragraph ⑤ the writer mainly

6 In Paragraph ⑥ the writer mainly

7 In Paragraph ⑦ the writer mainly

8 In Paragraph ⑧ the writer mainly

A argues that the assignment of men to the workplace and of women to the home began just a few centuries ago.

B cites the Industrial Revolution as a major historical cause behind the sweeping change in how people have come to regard marriage.

C claims that sexual division of labor occurred because it helped to improve the financial welfare of many families, especially after World War II.

D demonstrates how the gender gap has narrowed in some aspects of society, thus altering the way many households are now shaped.

E describes how decisions regarding marriage have traditionally been driven by practical considerations, such as income optimization.

F indicates that people's decisions to marry have been made quite apart from economic benefits that might be gained from the marriage.

G introduces Stephanie Coontz's findings, which suggest that the marriage structure that was common in the mid-20th century has a rather short history.

H offers data suggesting that younger Americans are increasingly discounting the value of marriage in their lives.

I outlines the motivation behind Stephanie Coontz's investigation into whether or not the institution of marriage is breaking down.

J overturns the popular idea that, as evidenced by the increase in the divorce rates, the social institution of marriage must be in a state of decline.

K predicts that, in accordance with postwar trends, future generations will value marriage and motherhood less and less.

L presents some data indicating that motherhood, in its various forms, is becoming a less significant and less socially expected part of female life.

M tells us that the social practice of marriage is now changing in a way that is more profound than even an expert like Stephanie Coontz anticipated.

(2) Choose the ONE way to complete each of these sentences that is NOT correct according to the passage.

1 The division of labor by gender

A contributed to economic growth in postwar America.

B has pushed men to work for a wage while women stay at home.

C is a more recent phenomenon than is often thought.

D placed men and women into separate roles and worlds.

E usually assigns women to domestic duties.

2 Members of Generation X

A are less likely to discount the value of marriage than Millennials.

B are more likely to remain single than their predecessors.

C are older than Millennials.

D have contributed to significant change in social trends regarding marriage.

E were, in 1997, less likely to be married than today's Millennials.

3 Recently, women have

A become no less likely than men to graduate from college.

B come to earn more than men in certain cases.

C grown far less likely than before to become mothers.

D seen their incomes increase at a higher rate than men's incomes.

E tended to marry earlier than their predecessors.

(3) Which one of the following sentences best sums up the author's argument in the passage?

A History suggests that humans have long linked marriage with economic interests, whereas Stephanie Coontz's research shows this to be increasingly untrue nowadays.

B Ideas about marriage and family structure have always changed along with social norms, but never more dramatically than they have lately.

C Stephanie Coontz's work proves that women can only advance in society when they are freed from the restrictions of marriage, domesticity, and motherhood.

D The emergence of the division of labor by gender has unexpectedly caused both men and women to devalue marriage over time.

E The primary reason why marriage is becoming less socially relevant is because economic considerations have grown more important, especially among women.

(4 ) Choose the best way to complete each of these sentences, which relate to the underlined words in the passage.

1 Here "discrediting" means

A disappearing. B disappointing. C discharging. D discouraeine. E disproving.

2 Here "thrive" means

A to break. B to decline. C to economize. D to flourish. E to survive.

3 Here "breadwinner" means someone within a household who

A earns the income. B manages the budget. C prepares the meals. D remains unmarried. E works at home.

4 Here "without precedent" refers to something that

A has held true over time.

B has never occurred before.

C is no different from anything else.

D is seldom successful.

E is unlikely to be repeated again.

5 Here "obsolete" means

A difficult. B important. C outdated. D popular. E useful.