单项选择题

The United States has historically had higher rates of marriage than those of other industrialized countries. The current annual marriage rate in the United States --- about 9 new marriages for every 1,000 people -- is (47) higher than it is in other industrialized countries. However, marriage is no longer as (48) as it was several decades ago. The proportion of American adults who are married (49) from 72 percent in 1970 to 60 percent in 2002. This does not mean that large numbers of people will (50) unmarried throughout their lives. Throughout the 20th century, about 90 percent of Americans married at some period in their lives. Experts (51) that about the same proportion of today’’s young adults will eventually marry. The timing of marriage has (52) consistently over the past century. In 1995 the average age of women in the United States at the time of their first marriage was 25 . The average age of men was about 27. Men and women in the United States marry for the first time at an average of five years later than people did in the 1950s. Besides, young adults of the 1950s married younger than did any (53) generation in U.S. history. Today’’s later age of marriage is in line with the age of marriage between 1890 and 1940. Moreover, a (54) proportion of the population was married (95 percent)during the 1950s than at any time before and after. Experts do not (55) on why the "marriage rush" of the late 1940s and 1950s occurred, but most social scientists believe it represented a response to the return of peaceful life and (56) after 15 years of severe economic depression and war. WORD BANK [A] declined [F] scarcely [K] widespread [B] prosperity [G] focus [L] previous [C] varied [H] substantially [M] number [D] remain [I] predict [N] agree [E] continued [J] larger [O] lower