Marriage, American style.
Брак, американский
стиль.
Что такое брак?

Брак- это социальный союз или юридический
договор между людьми, который создают родство.
Это институт, в котором межличностные
отношения являются признанными различными
способами, зависящие от культуры или
субкультуры. Такой союз, обычно
формализующийся через свадебную церемонию,
также может быть назван супружеством.
Народная мудрость

Общеизвестная мудрость говорит нам что
женитьба «разделяет наше горе, удваивает наше
счастье и увеличивает наши затраты в четыре
раза.» Сегодня американцы кажутся готовыми
стойко переносить превратности судьбы, потому
что образование браков продолжает широко
распространяться в США.
The theme of my work
and its actuality

The theme of my research work is customs and
traditions in the sphere of marriage in modern
American society. I have chosen exactly this theme,
because it is interesting for me, how people get
married in the society which is called a “melting pot”.
That is a complex of many cultures and languages,
and therefore it can’t help being reflected in
American marriage which has a number of national
features. And in my work I tried to tell about them in
details.
The goal

The goal of my research work: to show attitude to
marriage in modern American society and to compare
American and Russian styles of marriage.
The tasks

According to the goal I have set a few tasks:
1. Firstly, to research customs and traditions in the
sphere of marriage in a “melting pot”
2. Secondly, to reveal the features of American
marriage
3. And finally, to draw the conclusions concerning
the attitude of Americans to marriage and show
similarities between Russian and American styles
of marriage.
Features

I opened most especially American features which
can hardly be found anywhere else:
1. Most states require medical examinations and
certificates before issuing a marriage license and
refuse licenses to people with certain physical or
mental illnesses.
Features

2. When a couple gets divorced, the court may
require the man to pay his former wife a monthly
sum of money called alimony. If the woman has
totally supported her husband during the
marriage, the court may decide that she must
continue to support him after the divorce.
Features

3. Often, after a church wedding, guests throw rice, rose
petals, or confetti at the newlyweds as they leave the
church. Sometimes, the couple's car is decorated with tin
cans, paper streamers, or old shoes, along with a "Just
Married" sign. The tin cans and shoes will scare away evil
spirits and bring the couple good luck by theirs noise.
Rice is supposed to help the couple become parents.
Features

4. After the ceremony, there is a party at which guests
enjoy dinner and dancing. After the meal, the bride
and groom cut the cake, and it is served to the guests.
Some single women take a slice of cake home with
them. If a single woman sleeps with a slice of the
wedding cake under her pillow, she is supposed to dream
of the man she will marry.
Similarities

To my mind, there is much in common in American
and Russian styles of marriage:
1. The decision of choosing a spouse is usually based
upon feelings of love rather than practical
consideration.
2. In the United States as well as in Russia in most
cases parents don't arrange marriages for their
children.
Similarities

3. Today Americans and Russians marry an older
age than did young adults of the 1960s and
1970s.
4. American and Russians get married to people
with different backgrounds more and more often.
Similarities

5. Couples celebrate a silver (25th) or a golden
(50th) wedding anniversaries.
However the world doesn't change, family has always
been very important for most people and will always
be.