The greatest recent social changes have been 【C1】______ the lives of women. During the 20th century there has been a remarkable shortening of the【C2】______ of a woman’s life spent in【C3】______ for children. A woman marrying at the end of the nineteenth century would probably have been in her【C4】______ twenties, and would be likely to have seven or eight children, of【C5】______ four or five lived till they were five years old. By the time the youngest was fifteen, the mother 【C6】______ have been in her early fifties and would expect to live 【C7】______ further twenty years, during which custom, opportunity and health made it unusual for her to get 【C8】______ work. Today women marry younger and have【C9】______ children, Usually a woman’s youngest child will be fifteen when she is forty-five and can be【C10】______ to live another thirty-Five years and is likely to take paid work until retirement at sixty. Even【C11】______ she has the care of children, her work is【C12】______ by house-hold appliances ant convenience foods.
This important change in women’s life-pattern ha8 only recently begun to have its full effect on women’s economic【C13】______ Even a few yearn ago most girls loft school【C14】______ the first opportunity, and most of them took a full-time job. However, whoa they married, they usually loft work at once and never【C15】______ to it. Today the school-leaving age is sixteen, many girls【C16】______ at school after that age, and though women【C17】______ to marry younger, more married women stay at work at least until shortly before their first child is horn.【C18】______ many more afterwards return to full or part-time work, Such changes have【C19】______ to a new relationship in marriage, with the husband accepting a greater share of the【C20】______ and satisfaction of family life, and with both husband and wits sharing more equally in providing the money, and running the home, according to the abilities and interests of each of them.
【C1】