Section BDirections: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by som

Section B

Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the best choice.

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 unretirement at sixty. Even while she has the care of children, her work is lightened 1 household appliances and convenience foods.

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 return 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 or part-time work. Such changes have led to a new relation in marriage, with the husband accepting a greater share of the duties and satisfactions of the family life, and with both husband and wife sharing more equally in providing the money, and running the home, according to the abilities and interests of each of them.

According to the passage, around the year 1900 most women married ______.

A．at about twenty-five

B．in their early fifties

C．as soon as possible after they were fifteen

D．at any age from fifteen to forty five