Multiple choice

It is a well-documented fact that for all teenage couples who marry, the marriages of those who do not have children in the first year of their marriage survive more than twice as long as the marriages of those teenage couples in which the wife does give birth within the first 12 months of marriage. Therefore, many divorces could be avoided if teenagers who marry were encouraged to seek counselling on birth control as soon as possible after marriage.

The evidence regarding teenage marriages supports the author's conclusion only if

  1. a significant number of wives in such marriages were not pregnant at the time of marriage

  2. the children born during the first year of marriage to those divorcing couples lived with the teenage couple

  3. the child born into such a marriage did not die at birth

  4. society actually has an interest determining whether or not people should be divorced if there are not children involved

  5. encouraging people to stay married when they do not plan to have any children is a good idea
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

(1) The main point of the passage is that pregnancy and a child put strain on a young marriage and so, such marriages would have a higher survival rate without the strain of children. It would seem, then, that encouraging such couples not to have children would help them stay married; but that will be possible only if they have not already committed themselves, so to speak, to having a child. If the wife is already pregnant at the time of marriage, the commitment has already been made; so the advice is too late.

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