Task 1 Find words and collocations in the text that mean the following

Text 2

Task 2 Discuss the following questions in pairs using the words and word combinations from the previous task.

Task 1 Give the Russian equivalents to the following words and word combinations from the text.

Warm tender relations, consideration, overcome troubles, social position, labor achievements, depend on, duty, strong marriage, similar characters, mutual understanding, joys and sorrows, obey, personality formation, substitute, find the way out, take a great deal of (smth), housework

1. What does the author associate the word “family” with? What do you personally associate the word “family” with?

2. What do family relations depend on?

3. What mistake do young people make at the beginning of their marriage?

4. What are good parents like according to the author? Do you agree? What are your parents like in terms of family relations?

5. Who does happiness in a family depend on? What do you personally do to create a happy family?

The Swedish Answer: Unisex Marriage

By Sarah Jolly, a British housewife who lived in Sweden for 3 years

Would you like a unisex marriage with husband and wife sharing housework and breadwinning day and day about? I can only report that Swedish wives flourish on it.

They are outward-looking, and a conversation with them is likely to be about their work, hobbies or families. They look enthusiastic in all kinds of ways. During the three years I lived in Sweden while my husband was working there, I repeatedly heard how much Swedish wives appreciated and enjoyed their families and homes because they were away from them for some of the time in their own careers.

The average Swede, though tall and handsome, doesn’t spend much time paying a woman compliments. Perhaps this is because he is quite prepared to treat her as an equal.

When a young couple marry they don’t take it for granted that the husband is the breadwinner, and the wife is the housekeeper. They have a flexible approach, sharing out the work and chores in a way which suits them. No one criticises them if they reverse their traditional roles. As Katerina, a Swedish wife, explained to me: “Stefan and I have known each other since childhood. We went to the same kind of school, and we both trained as dentists, so why should one of us have a career?” A doctor who works in a Child Care Department thought that women had a right to work and support themselves. “I can understand a woman who prefers housework to factory work, but I just cannot understand an educated woman who doesn’t work.”

“When we married I was studying”, a woman psychiatrist told me. And of course, when I got my qualification I started to practise.” She couldn’t imagine training and then not using her vital skills.

Nor is it only professional women who expect to work. The girl who came to clean my house told me that her husband was a postman. “He’s up early, and then he comes home early in the afternoon and looks after the baby while I go out to work.”

Increasingly, the Swedish husband accepts that household chores are partly his responsibility.

(from The Daily Telegraph)

1. a person who works to support a family

2. be well and active, prosper (v)

3. easy-going, sociable (adj.)

4. put a high value on (verb)

5. accept smth. as true or certain without discussion (verb)

6. a small task or a piece of work, especially an ordinary everyday task (e.g. in the home)

7. again and again (adverb)

8. a very important ability to do smth.

9. distribute duties

10. agree (v)

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