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The greatest recent social changes have been in the lives of women. During the twentieth century there
has been a remarkable shortening of the proportion of a woman's life spent in caring for children. A woman
marrying at the end of the nineteenth century would probably have been in her middle twenties, and would
be likely to have seven or eight children, of whom four or five lived till they were five years old. By the time
the youngest was fifteen, the mother would have been in her early fifties and would expect to live a further
twenty years, during which custom, opportunity and health made it unusual for her to get paid work. Today
women marry younger and have fewer children. Usually a woman's youngest child will be fifteen when she
is forty-five and can be expected to live another thirty-five years and is likely to take paid work until retirement
at sixty. Even while she has the care of children, her work is lightened by household appliances and
convenience food.
This important change in women's life-pattern has only recently begun to have its full effect on women's
economic position. Even a few years ago most girls left school at the first opportunity, and most of them took
a full-time job. However, when they married, they usually left work at once and never returned to it. Today the
school- leaving age is sixteen, many girls stay at school after that age, and though women tend to marry
younger, more married women stay at work at least until shortly before their first child is born. Very many
more afterwards return to full-time or part-time work. Such changes have led to a new relationship in marriage,
with the husband accepting a greater share of the duties and satisfactions of family life, and with both husband
and wife sharing more equally in providing the money, and running the home, according to their abilities and
interests of each of them.
1. For women during the twentieth century, the amount of time spent taking care of children _____.
A. accounted for a great part of their lives
B. was considered to be surprisingly long
C. was longer than in previous centuries
D. was shorter than in previous centuries
2. According to the passage, around the year 1900 most women married _____.
A. in their early fifties
B. at about twenty-five
C. at any age from fifteen to forty-five
D. soon after they were fifteen
3. When she was over fifty, the late nineteen-century mother _____.
A. was unlikely to find a job even if she wanted one
B. would expect to work until she died
C. was usually expected to die fairly soon
D. would be healthy enough to take up paid employment
4. One reason why the mother of today may take a job is that she _____.
A. can retire from family responsibilities when she reaches sixty
B. need not worry about food for her children
C. is younger when her children are old enough to look after themselves
D. does not like children herself

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