单项选择题

Isn’t marriage meant to be for life Why then do so many marriages in the U.K. now end in divorce
An incredible 66 percent of marriages in the U. K. end in divorce, which is the highest rate in Europe. The rate is continuing to rise as well. Will it get close to 100 percent one day
What on earth is happening to the U. K. to cause such a phenomenon Many consider the family to be the basic building block of society. If marriages and families are falling apart, is U. K. society also falling apart Is the divorce rate a symptom of some sort of social crisis Is the U. K. ’s cultural identity disintegrating
It’s quite difficult these days to say what the U. K. ’s cultural identity is. We’re all familiar with British traditions and customs, but they don’t really seem to be a big part of modern life in the U. K.. It is inaccurate to think that all British men are gentlemen who wear bowler hats. That is not what the U.K. is like generally. It is wrong to think that we all live in quiet, sleepy villages and play cricket. We don’t all drink tea with milk. The U.K. of today is one of the most multicultural countries on Earth. There are exotic sights and sounds on the street corners of every British city. British cuisine is now one of the most diverse around. Everyone speaks with a different accent. The strange and the bizarre are quite common in the U. K..
Is such diversity a good thing Well, it makes the U. K. a very exciting place to live. There are new ideas everywhere. All the senses are stimulated. There is great freedom to be who you want to be, and most people will not criticize you for who you are. Yet such freedom seems to come at a cost. It’s not all happy families. There has been a significant number of race riots in both the south and north of England over the last 50 years of British history. Some British people regard ethnic minorities as coming to the U.K. to steal jobs. The credit crunch has only increased this feeling, of course, because unemployment rates have risen.
So, it could be argued the breakdown of marriages in the U.K. is in some part because of the pressures put upon families by wider problems in British society. It will be interesting to see if the divorce rate also increases because of the financial pressures put upon families by the credit crunch. Many people become stressed and unhappy when they lack financial security, and that can then make their home life or family life stressed and unhappy as well.
Another possible reason for the high divorce rate might be that marriage no longer has the same value or meaning for British people as it once did. Church attendance in the U.K. has been falling for the last 50 years, suggesting fewer people consider marriage a holy institution. Since 1991, there has been a drop of 50 percent in people getting married in church rather than a register office. Bizarrely, Christian missionaries now come to the U. K., whereas 800 years ago, the U.K. was sending Christian missionaries out around the world.
Then there is the financial side to getting married. In the past, married couples paid lower government taxes than singles. That tax incentive has now disappeared. In addition, the cost of a "white wedding" in the U. K., once every girl’s dream, is now so high (a minimum of ￡10,000) that increasingly few people can afford it.
What does it all mean Will marriage disappear completely in the U. K. one day The answer is.. probably not. The reality is that the institution of marriage is changing with British society, so it has a good chance of survival. Since the introduction of "civil partnerships" in the U. K. in 2005, thousands of same-sex marriages have taken place every year. The dissolution rate (effectively, the divorce rate) is less than one percent. The U. K. has made a lot of progress in the area of gay rights since homosexual acts were decriminalized in 1967. It’s probably just as well, since otherwise no one would be happily married in the U. K..
______ in the U.K. has dropped for the last decades.