"Ah, yes, divorce", Robin Williams once mused, "from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man’s genitals through his wallet". The

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问题     "Ah, yes, divorce", Robin Williams once mused, "from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man’s genitals through his wallet". The derivation may not be found in dictionaries, but he was on well-trodden ground in linking divorce to money. This month a survey conducted among financial analysts, stockbrokers and hedge-fund managers by Mishcon de Reya, a law firm, suggested that the economic downturn will prompt an upsurge in divorces among high-earners in London’s financial centre.
    This pattern is not without precedent; Sandra Davis, who commissioned the study, says that the recession of the early 1990s led to a wave of divorces among the City’s wealthy people. A third of current inquiries to lawyers by those deciding to break the knot, she claims, are linked to the credit crunch.
    One explanation is that the defecting spouses of high earners are getting out before the crunch reduces the potential for profitable settlements. As the City boom turns to bust, redundancies are becoming commonplace and huge bonuses a distant dream. Since recent earnings are one of the factors taken into account in divorce settlements, it makes sense to divorce sooner rather than later. Others argue that money and the distractions it buys allow couples to avoid addressing difficulties in their relationship, which come to the fore in more financially-distressed times.
    For middle earners, the link between divorce rates and economic conditions is less clear-cut, not least since the main marital asset is houses rather than spouses. Rising inflation and falling house prices put pressure on marriages and might thus contribute to higher divorce rates. Yet the same factors also make splitting up more complicated. Falling property prices mean that selling the family home may not provide sufficient funds for two separate homes, especially now that lenders have become much more choosy. "A flagging economy clearly leads to an increase in misery; whether or not it causes a rise in the divorce rate is a debatable point," sums up Stephen Jenkins, director of the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    One consequence is that more couples are living together after divorce, which raises its own problems. Godfrey Freeman, chairman of Resolution, an association of family lawyers, points out that the lower-earning partners in such couples may find it harder to claim benefits. They are usually refused help, he says, on the grounds that their mortgage is being paid, even if they have no cash of their own to cover everyday expenses.
By referring to the middle earners, the author intends to show that

选项 A、some couples would like to spend life together even if they break up.
B、they are forced to consider economic situations after the divorce.
C、the link between divorce and money is as evident as in the cases of rich couples.
D、they are faced with different problems compared with wealthy classes.

答案D

解析 观点态度题。根据middle earners定位至第四段。文中提到“房产的贬值意味着离婚后变卖房产所得可能不足以让离婚双方各自购房”,说明中产阶级和富裕阶层面临不同的问题,D项正确。
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