不成文的社会规则:没钱就没权利结婚？

Marriage rates in America are at an all-time low. Young men and women are delaying marriage into their late 20s and early 30s, sometimes to their detriment of their health and well-being.

结婚率在美国正处于历史低点。年轻男女都将结婚推迟到30岁左右，有时到他们的健康和福祉都受损时。

And yet, with the average cost of a wedding hovering around $28,000, it's no wonder that those in their early- to mid-20s are reluctant to tie the knot -- they likely don't have the money to do it.

然而，一场婚礼的平均成本在28000美元附近徘徊，难怪那些20多岁的人都不愿意结婚了，他们可能没有钱去做这件事。

On Thursday, author and Los Angeles Times columnist Meghan Daum offered another possible explanation for low marriage rates:

周四，笔者和洛杉矶时报专栏作家Meghan Daum为低结婚率提供了另一种可能的解释：

"We've been sent an insidious little message [about marriage]: that being committed to a partner means having graduated to a certain standard of bourgeois living," she said at a public forum in Beverly Hills, Calif. Daum explained that there is an unspoken cultural assertion that in order to earn the "right" to be married, couples must first reach upper-class status. "With unwritten cultural rules like that," she said, "it's no wonder marriage gets put on the back burner."

“我们已经收到一条潜在的小消息[关于婚姻]：对另一半承诺意味着获得一定标准的资产阶级生活，”她在加州比弗利山庄的一个公共论坛上说。Daum解释说有个不成文的文化标准，为了获得结婚的权利，夫妻首先必须取得上流社会的地位。“在这不成文的文化规则下，”她说，“难怪婚姻被搁置。”

In the U.S., just 20 percent of adults aged 18 to 29 are married, and four in 10 Americans surveyed by the Pew Research Center in 2010 said they believe that marriage is obsolete.

在美国，年龄在18岁到29岁的成人中只有20%结婚了，皮尤研究中心在2010年调查的美国人中有十分之四的人表示他们认为婚姻是过时的。