現(xiàn)代的婚姻，要付出更多努力

HERE lie both the great successes and great disappointments of modern marriage. Those individuals who can invest enough time and energy in their partnership are seeing unprecedented benefits. The sociologists Jeffrey Dew and W. Bradford Wilcox have demonstrated that spouses who spent “time alone with each other, talking, or sharing an activity” at least once per week were 3.5 times more likely to be very happy in their marriage than spouses who did so less frequently. The sociologist Paul R. Amato and colleagues have shown that spouses with a larger percentage of shared friends spent more time together and had better marriages.

現(xiàn)代的婚姻既可能使你收獲偉大的成功，也可能令你遭遇巨大的失望。那些能夠在婚姻關系中投入足夠的時間和精力的人將可望摘得前所未有的甜蜜果實。社會學家杰弗里·迪尤(Jeffrey Dew)和W·布拉德福德·威爾科克斯(W. Bradford Wilcox)的研究證明，每周至少一次“與配偶獨處，談心或一起從事某項活動”的夫妻擁有美滿婚姻生活的可能性是達不到這一標準的夫妻們的3.5倍。社會學家保羅·R·阿馬托(Paul R. Amato)及其同事也發(fā)現(xiàn)，朋友圈交集較大的夫妻相處的時間較多，婚姻也更幸福。

But on average Americans are investing less in their marriages — to the detriment of those relationships. Professor Dew has shown that relative to Americans in 1975, Americans in 2003 spent much less time alone with their spouses. Among spouses without children, weekly spousal time declined to 26 hours per week from 35 hours, and much of this decline resulted from an increase in hours spent at work. Among spouses with children at home, spousal time declined to 9 hours per week from 13, and much of this decline resulted from an increase in time-intensive parenting.

但平均而言，美國人在婚姻中的投入有所減少——這已經損害了夫妻關系。迪尤教授指出，2003年時美國人與配偶獨處的時間較之1975年時有所減少。在沒有子女的婚姻中，夫妻相處的時間從每周35小時下降到了26小時，其主要原因是工作時間的增加。而在家有兒女的婚姻中，夫妻相處的時間從每周13小時下降到了9小時，這部分減少的時間基本上都花在了育兒之上。

Though this is not a specifically socioeconomic phenomenon, it does have a socioeconomic dimension. One of the most disturbing facts about American marriage today is that while divorce increased at similar rates for the wealthy and the poor in the 1960s and ’70s, those rates diverged sharply starting around 1980. According to the sociologist Steven P. Martin, among Americans who married between 1975 and 1979, the 10-year divorce rate was 28 percent among people without a high school education and 18 percent among people with at least a college degree: a 10 percentage point difference. But among Americans who married between 1990 and 1994, the parallel divorce rates were 46 percent and 16 percent: an astonishing 30 percentage point difference.

雖然這算不上什么特殊的社會經濟學現(xiàn)象，但它包含著社會經濟學層面的因素。當今美國人的婚姻中一個最令人不安的現(xiàn)象是，盡管在20世紀60年代和70年代，富人與窮人的離婚率均以類似的速度增加，但從1980年起，兩者之間的差距急劇擴大。社會學家史蒂文·P·馬丁(Steven P. Martin)指出，在1975年至1979年間結婚的美國人中，沒受過高中教育的夫妻中的10年離婚率為28%，而在至少具備大專學歷的夫妻中則為18%：相差10%。然而，在1990年至1994年間結婚的美國人中，上述離婚率分別為46%和16%：差異達到驚人的30%。

The problem is not that poor people fail to appreciate the importance of marriage, nor is it that poor and wealthy Americans differ in which factors they believe are important in a good marriage. The problem is that the same trends that have exacerbated inequality since 1980 — unemployment, juggling multiple jobs and so on — have also made it increasingly difficult for less wealthy Americans to invest the time and other resources needed to sustain a strong marital bond.

問題并不在于窮人認識不到婚姻的重要性，也不是因為美國的窮人和富人對構成美滿婚姻的要素有著不同的定義。問題是，自1980年以來，人與人之間的不平等趨勢日益加劇，失業(yè)、身兼數(shù)職等壓力迫使這部分不夠富裕的美國人愈發(fā)拿不出足夠的時間和其他資源來維系緊密的婚姻關系。

What can be done? Government actions that reduce inequality and family-friendly work policies like on-site child care are likely to help strengthen marriage. But they are not the only options, particularly for individual couples.

對此我們可以采取哪些措施?政府采取行動來減少這些不平等，并推行有利于家庭的工作政策，如在公司內提供托兒服務等，可能有助于改善婚姻關系。但這并不是唯一的解決之道，具體到夫妻個人身上尤其如此。

First and foremost, couples can choose to invest more time and energy in their marriage, perhaps by altering how they use whatever shared leisure time is available. But if couples lack the time and energy, they might consider adjusting their expectations, perhaps by focusing on cultivating an affectionate bond without trying to facilitate each other’s self-actualization.

首先，夫妻們可以選擇在他們的婚姻中投入更多的時間和精力，比如換個方式來打發(fā)他們共同的閑暇時間等。不過，如果實在沒有時間或精力，他們也可以考慮調整對婚姻的期望，譬如不再強求彼此的自我實現(xiàn)，退而求其次將注意力集中在建立牢固的感情紐帶之上。

The bad news is that insofar as socioeconomic circumstances or individual choices undermine the investment of time and energy in our relationships, our marriages are likely to fall short of our era’s expectations. The good news is that our marriages can flourish today like never before. They just can’t do it on their own.

壞消息是：只要社會經濟環(huán)境或個人選擇影響我們在婚姻中投入時間和精力，我們的婚姻就很可能達不到這個時代的期望。但也不是沒有好消息：今天的婚姻完全可以呈現(xiàn)出前所未有的繁花似錦——只不過，想要獲得美滿的婚姻，總得付出一番努力。