Unit 13 Marriage课文翻译综合教程四.doc

Unit 13 Marriage Robert Lynd 1 “Conventional people,” says Mr. Bertrand Russell, “like to pretend that difficulties in regard to marriage are a new thing.” I could not help wondering, as I read this sentence, where one can meet these conventional people who think, or pretend to think, as conventional people do. I have known hundreds of conventional people, and I cannot remember one of them who thought the things conventional people seem to think. They were all, for example, convinced that marriage was a state beset with difficulties, and that these difficulties were as old, if not as the hills, at least as the day on which Adam lost a rib and gained a wife. A younger generation of conventional people has grown up in recent years, and it may be that they have a rosier conception of marriage than their ancestors; but the conventional people of the Victorian era were under no illusions on the subject. Their cynical attitude to marriage may be gathered from the enthusiastic reception they gave to Punch’s advice to those about to marry － “Don’t.” 2 I doubt, indeed, whether the horrors of marriage were ever depicted more cruelly than during the conventional nineteenth century. The comic papers and music-halls made the miseries a standing dish. “You can always tell whether a man’s married or single from the way he’s dressed,” said the comedian. “Look at the single man: no buttons on his shirt. Look at the married man: no shirt.” The humour was crude; but it went home to the honest Victorian heart. If marriage were to be judged by the songs conventional people used to sing about it in the music-halls, it would seem a hell mainly populated by twins and leech-like mothers-in-law. The rare experiences of Darby and Joan were, it is true, occasionally hymned, reducing strong men smelling strongly of alcohol to reverent silence; but, on the whole, the audience felt more normal when a comedian came out with an anti-marital refrain such as: O why did I leave my littl