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1、Lecture SixBritish Family Life(By Yang Jian)Warming-Up Questions: 1. What is a permissive society?2. What is the ploughmans lunch?The family life in Britain can be certainly classified into a variety of groups. Even tow families can never be alike in every way; however, in surveying the very large l
2、iterature on some concrete matters, we can still find some common or general characters of the British. I. HousingA. Housing system1. “Owner-occupation”: most home, around 65% of them, are owned by the people to buy their own home, and there is a sophisticated and accessible system of finance from b
3、anks to allow them to do so-usually through a loan, or “mortgage” paid back over a period of 25 years. Often the loan is made for 95% of the value of the property to be purchased leaving the buyer to provide 5% as a deposit. 1 2. Public housing: owned either by the local (city) government, or by ind
4、ependent non-profit organizations called housing associations. B. Four main types of home1. “Flats” (or apartments): a. of varying size, often in modern multi-storey purpose-built buildings, though sometimes made by sub-dividing big old houses. b. often publicly owned c. vary a lot in size d. large
5、flats in fashionable areas such as central London may be very high status and very expensive2. “Terraced” houses: a. individual two-storey houses built joining on to each other at each side in a terrace or row (known as “row” houses in the US), often of the “two-up, two-down” variety, meaning they h
6、ave two rooms downstairs and two bedrooms upstairs, plus a small kitchen and bathroom in a projection at the back (nevertheless, much larger terraced houses do exist: three-storey variants are not unusual). b. only have a small enclosed concrete “yard” at the back, rather then a garden. c. many of t
7、his kind of home are 19th century in origin, though modernized, built originally to house factory workers. d. such houses are most common in inner-city areas. 3. The “semi”: a. a house which is “semi-detached”, meaning that it is joined to another house only on ONE side, so that semis stand together
8、 in pairs. b. usually a two storey house with kitchen, living-room and dining room on the ground floor,2 and three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, though larger and smaller versions are not unusual. c. would have a small garden at the front dividing it from the road, and a larger one at the back (
9、twenty meters by 10 meters might be an average size, though they vary quite a lot), as well as a garage for a car at the side. d. first became popular in the 1920s and 30s, but has continued to be built in much the same layout, though in different styles, ever since. 4. Detached house: a. stands alo
10、ne with garden on all sides separating it a little from its neighbour. b. might be a one-storey house (for which British people use the Indian word “bungalow”) or two. Three-storey houses are less usual. c. would tend to be found in suburban areas.C. GardensGardens are important to many British peop
11、le. Gardening is one of the most popular pastimes, and many unremarkable, even dull-looking, houses from the front might conceal a well-tended, flower-filled back-garden. Often this is not visible form the road, and unlike American homes the garden is often fenced, or marked off with high hedges, ma
12、king it quite private. This may reflect a greater desire for privacy on the part of the British-or it may be simply that because Britain is a more densely populated land than America, house are usually closer together in Britain, making privacy more important. II. MarriageA. Age for marriageAccordin
13、g to the English law: Below the age of 16-no child can get married. Between 16 and 18-the parents consent to the marriage is necessaryOver the age of 18-the parents consent is unnecessaryActually, most girls and nearly all men in Britain are well over 18 when they get married. Marriage marks the beg
14、inning of a new and independent family, which means leaving ones parents and starting ones own life for both the man and the woman.B. EngagementYoung people of both sexes associate freely. In terms of marriage the young people do not like to have control placed on them by other family members. It is
15、 quite normal for a girl of 16 to go out with a boyfriend. Kisses and embraces between them are considered quite natural behavior. If they are together for a long time and know each other well, the girl would invite her boyfriend to her house to meet her parents. And the boy would do the same. If they had made private promise to marry, the boy will buy an engagement ring for the girl. The engagement ring is placed on the third finger of the girls left hand, which is simply a public declaration of engagement and a means of discouraging the attentions o
