< >当爱已不足以<B><o:p></o:p></B>
< ><B><FONT face="Times New Roman">   when love’s not enough <o:p></o:p></FONT></B>
< ><FONT face="Times New Roman">I had given a talk on family change one night . at dinner afterwards , I was subjected to a hostile quizzing by a group of thirty something women who claimed that my whole analysis ignored the most basic change of all </FONT>
<P ><FONT face="Times New Roman">The family does not consist of spouse of single women , were best friends , supported one another, and defined one another as “family “ marriage and having kids were now irrelevant and that was the most basic social change </FONT>
<P ><FONT face="Times New Roman">In retrospect , they were right , but that change is itself the problem .family is , if anything, the link between generations, the focal point of social reproduction and cultural transmission . it is just a big tent where everyone can enjoy the show .both marriage and family involve ongoing obligations and shared care, mot just the pursuit of happiness that strange goal of the modern age </FONT>
<P ><FONT face="Times New Roman">It seems that love has got out of hand .the modern nuclear family has rooted in the rise of effective individualism- the desire to live happily in a more equal partnership marriage . where the nurture of children and investment of both parents in their lives was guaranteed by bonds of friendship based on rational love </FONT>
<P ><FONT face="Times New Roman">There was an inherent instability in any marriage based as such pinned it down by defining kinship ties and the obligations of parents to children .what people call the new love family, unfortunately, replaced permanence with the norm of unfettered choice.</FONT>
<P ><FONT face="Times New Roman">We can now not only choose our marriage partner , we can divorce that partner at will, subordinate children to our own adult pursuit of happiness ,deny the other parent any ongoing contact with their offspring . we can even , if we want , define as our family people who are not related to us either by blood ,marriage or adoption – a set of  close friends who support one another, like the women  I mentioned above . throw in the faithful dog if you like . family is what we want it to be.</FONT>
<P ><FONT face="Times New Roman">The trouble is, this ignores the problem of children and the wider problem of care. if marriage exists only as an intimate relationship that can be terminated at will, and family exists only by virtue of bonds of affection, both marriage and family are relegated to the marketplace of trading places, with individuals maximizing their psychological capital by moving through a series of more or less satisfying intimate relationships. Children, kin, the ties of mutual obligation and care are left behind.</FONT>
<P ><FONT face="Times New Roman">Freewheeling adults may find this okay .but children can not be described in marketplace terms , they demand sacrifice and altruism, a</FONT>
<P ><FONT face="Times New Roman">long-term investment of parental time and money </FONT>
<P ><FONT face="Times New Roman">The whole point of marriage is that it imposes clear obligation is to provide .both emotional and practice nurture for children . the glow of</FONT>
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<P ><FONT face="Times New Roman">burning passion may well have faded , you love for your spouse may not be as exciting or satisfying as it once was ,but going off in search of another love will not help your children . the love is either too amorphous for children –your friends have no obligation to provide for them –or it is too unstable , with adults moving on if the relationship no longer answers their search for perfect happiness </FONT>
<P ><FONT face="Times New Roman">What divorce does is damage children . I am aware of the complex research surrounding the effects of divorce on children and I  acknowledge that some children are better off without a violent father ,an income boozed or gambled away , unhappy parents raking out their spleen on everyone in the family </FONT>
<P ><FONT face="Times New Roman">But divorce severs the stability , security and continuity that children need ; it results in poverty for many women and children; it damage the voluntary kink between father and children and replaces it with one of regulated , arranged parenthood ;it removes the father from co-residence ,the only sensible basis fir a working parental relationship ; ; it overloads the mother-child bond and leaves her with a double burden ; and it often disrupts the child’s schooling ,friendships and neighbourhood contacts, those underpinnings of trust and social capital that every child must have , it even weakens the child’s link with grandparents and other kin ,and few para-parents are willing to take on real responsibility for the child’s well being</FONT>
<P ><FONT face="Times New Roman">Love id not enough , compared with the presence and and support of both parents .Nor , I would venture to suggest , is love enough to sustain an ongoing marital relationship .The love family ,in the end ,doesn't have to care, and unfettered freedom will become out chain , leaving is with no recourse but lonely isolation </FONT>
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