Discussion

Ex. 1. Answer the questions.

1. Do you think people should get to know each other well before getting married?

2. Do you believe in love at first sight?

3. Do you believe that marriages of convenience can be successful (happy)?

4. What are the reasons for getting married?

5. What is the best age for getting married?

6. Why do young people in urbanized countries postpone marriage these days?

7. Do you approve of concubinage (cohabitation)?

8. What should people take into consideration before getting married?

9. Are these good reasons for getting married?

• Two young people are very much in love.

• Two people have been close friends for years, although they don’t love each other.

• The girl is pregnant.

• The woman is rich and the man needs money.

• The man (aged 50) wants a young wife, and the woman (aged 25) wants a home and children.

• Two people are old and lonely. They are not in love but they both need company.

10. Are there special difficulties in our country for men and women to meet each other?

11. Are these important factors in a happy marriage?

• being mature

• caring about each other’s feelings

• always telling the truth

• not being always together

• having the same interests

• understanding each other.

12. Are people who marry late (over 40) more likely to be happy together than people who marry young? What difficulties might such people have? Does it make a difference to a child if his parents are young or old?

Ex. 2. Comment on the advice the following proverbs give to those who are choosing their spouse.

• Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, and half shut afterwards.

• Take a vine of a good soil, and the daughter of a good mother.

• Choose a wife by your ear rather than by your eye.

• Marry not an old crony, or a fool, for money.

• In choosing a wife, and buying a sword, we ought not to trust another.

• Marry first, and love will follow.

• Marry your like.

• Like blood, like good, and like age, make the happiest marriage.

Ex. 3. Marriage has always been argued about! Below are statements about marriage which express different opinions. Agree or disagree with them.

1. Society would not exist without marriage.

2. Marriage is unnecessary.

3. Marriage is important for children.

4. Marriage keeps couples together.

5. A marriage license is a worthless piece of paper.

6. Marriage restricts freedom.

7. A lot of married people get divorced.

8. Marriages at later ages are more stable.

Ex. 4. Look through the proverbs. Express your opinion on them.

1. He that marries for wealth, sells his liberty.

2. Go down the ladder when you marry a wife; go up when you choose a friend.

3. A young maid married to an old man is like a new house thatched with old straw.

4. Honest man marries soon, wise man not at all.

5. Maids want nothing but husbands, and when they have them they want everything.

Ex. 5. Discuss the problem of marriage and cohabitation:

One can agree that each step in courtship is laid down in social ritual. But what is bad about it? Can you give any arguments for the establishment of marriage now that the divorce rate is rising, the number of couples living together without a marriage licence is increasing?

Here are some keywords to use in your discussion. Contribute ideas of your own.

FOR MARRIAGE

1. A family is the basic unit of society.

2. Divorce should be harder to get.

3. A good marriage contributes to personal development.

4. It is not marriage that fails, it is people that fail.

5. Cohabiting parents are three times more likely to split up than married parents. Children are the main victims.

AGAINST MARRIAGE

1. Social attitudes and behaviour are changing. There’s no such thing as society. Only men and women.

2. The divorce rate is rising.

3. One cannot write love into a legal document.

4. Marriage is not a word, it’s a sentence.

5. The birth of a child to a single woman gives her a purpose in life.

Ex. 6. Make reports on wedding customs (see Appendix, Unit 3).