不成文的社會規則:沒錢就沒權利結婚？大綱

Marriage rates in America are at an all-time low. Young men and women are delaying marriage into their late 20s and early 30s, sometimes to their detriment of their health and well-being.
結婚率在美國正處於歷史低點。年輕男女都將結婚推遲到30歲左右，有時到他們的健康和福祉都受損時。

And yet, with the average cost of a wedding hovering around $28,000, it's no wonder that those in their early- to mid-20s are reluctant to tie the knot -- they likely don't have the money to do it.
然而，一場婚禮的平均成本在28000美元附近徘徊，難怪那些20多歲的人都不願意結婚了，他們可能沒有錢去做這件事。

On Thursday, author and Los Angeles Times columnist Meghan Daum offered another possible explanation for low marriage rates:
週四，筆者和洛杉磯時報專欄作家Meghan Daum爲低結婚率提供了另一種可能的解釋：

"We've been sent an insidious little message [about marriage]: that being committed to a partner means having graduated to a certain standard of bourgeois living," she said at a public forum in Beverly Hills, Calif. Daum explained that there is an unspoken cultural assertion that in order to earn the "right" to be married, couples must first reach upper-class status. "With unwritten cultural rules like that," she said, "it's no wonder marriage gets put on the back burner."
“我們已經收到一條潛在的小消息[關於婚姻]：對另一半承諾意味着獲得一定標準的資產階級生活，”她在加州比弗利山莊的一個公共論壇上說。Daum解釋說有個不成文的文化標準，爲了獲得結婚的權利，夫妻首先必須取得上流社會的地位。“在這不成文的文化規則下，”她說，“難怪婚姻被擱置。”

In the U.S., just 20 percent of adults aged 18 to 29 are married, and four in 10 Americans surveyed by the Pew Research Center in 2010 said they believe that marriage is obsolete.
在美國，年齡在18歲到29歲的成人中只有20%結婚了，皮尤研究中心在2010年調查的美國人中有十分之四的人表示他們認爲婚姻是過時的。