Part 1 Traditional & Modern Family 传统与现代家庭 

    A great many people, when they speak of home, tend to appreciate it with a certain atmosphere, certain physical surroundings, and certain emotional attitudes with themselves. This sentimentality toward home is something that has come down to us from the past. Many modern people do not have it, and I think it is a good thing that they do not.

    In the old days, life was difficult. Enemies could attack you and kill or rob you, and you had little protection against them. People did not live in well-built houses where doors could be locked. They did not have the protection of an organized police force or telephones which could summon the police instantly. How did this influence the way people felt about home?

    Small family groups clung tightly together for protection against beasts and against other men. Only the braves went beyond the small family area. Even in the Middle Ages only the most daring went to lands beyond the sea. The human pursuit of security conditioned men to love their homes. I am sure that this feeling must have been very strong among the early settlers of the United States who were obliged, by famine and oppression, to take the plunge and go to the new land where they knew no one and where they were subject to Indian attack. We can see this even today in the attitudes of minority groups who, because of a feeling of insecurity, still preserve cohesive family ties.

    Thanks to modern transportation and well-organized societies, thousands of people willingly and eagerly leave the surroundings where they were born, and the oftener they do so, the less sentiment they are likely to have for those surroundings. How has the meaning of this word “home” been altered by such activity? What does home mean to those people or to families who often move about, living first in one hotel and then another? I believe that for them home means a place where they can have privacy. For them, the atmosphere and surroundings of the place where their parents live have no sentimental attachment. 　

    Families are important to people all over the world although the structure of family is different from one country to another or from the modern family to the traditional one.

    Firstly, Let's see what similarities there are between the traditional & modern family. We can say both of them are nuclear families (with parents & their children as only members), & the role of the father in both types is to provide for his family while the mother takes care of the childre's physical & emotional needs.

    Secondly, the differences between the two are also clear. For example, the traditional husband was the head of the household while today's husband & wife share the role; And modern woman works outside the home even after she has children, namely, she's doing two jobs instead of one, so preschool children may go to a child care center or to a baby-sitter regularly (since the mother works).

   No matter it is traditional or modern, every family has the sense as following: families offer us a feeling of belonging, of love & security.

    家庭是社会的细胞，是组成社会的基本单位。自从家庭诞生以来，人们生活在不同的家庭之中，休养生息，繁衍后代，享受着天伦之乐。

    美国作家爱默生曾经说过："家庭是这样一个地方，在一日之中，人们的胃口得到三餐的满足，而人们的心灵却得到千百次的满足。"

    许多人在谈到家的时候往往将它和某种氛围、某种自然环境以及某些自我情感联系在一起。这种对家庭的依恋之情古来有之，代代相传。而许多现代人不再有这种情感了。

     在遥远的古代，人们的生活十分艰难。那时候，小型家庭群体紧密团结，聚在一起，共同抵御野兽和敌人。只有最勇敢的人才敢离开小小的家族管辖区。甚至在中世纪也只有最勇敢的人才敢飘洋过海。人类对安全的追求决定了人们对家庭的热爱。

    现在由于现代化交通设施的出现和社会组织秩序的完善，成千上万的人们愿意并且渴望离开他们的出生地。而且他们离家外出越频繁，他们对出生地的情感可能就越淡。现代人的家庭观念已经慢慢淡化了。这可能也是现代化社会发展的必然趋势吧。

    但是无论人们的家庭观念如何变化，家始终是我们最温馨的港湾。在《The Wizard of Oz》，也就是童话小说《绿野仙踪》中小女孩Dorothy不是说过嘛，There's no place like home，没有地方可以像家一样给我们归属感和安全感。

    在英语中，home, family和house都可以译为“家”，但是三个词的侧重点有所不同。 house侧重于“地点、住房”。一提起house很容易使人联想起房屋中的家具、设备、装饰等，如：we have a computer in the house(我们家里有一台电脑)。

    family 侧重于指家庭成员的全体，它强调的是人。family 看作一个整体时，意思是“家庭”，后面跟单数动词，如把family 看作为“家庭成员”时，应按复数对待。后面的动词应是复数形式。如：My family are all tall 我们全家人都很高。 home 在三个词中最具有感情色彩，它不仅包括家人共同生活的场所，还包括“天伦之乐”“家庭团聚”的意思，如：It's time to go home 现在该回家了。

    我们刚刚说了family这个词在字典里的解释。那你知道family还可以怎样解释吗？family的拼写大家都知道是f-a-m-i-l-y, 那么以这几个字母开头，就有F - father A - and M - mother I - I L - love Y - you，也就是爸爸妈妈我爱你们的意思了，倒是跟family这个词的意义很贴合。

    husband和wife也可以按照这样的模式解释，比如，wife就是W - washing； I - ironing ；F - food ；E – entertaining，几个词就概括了一个妻子的功能。husband就可以解释成 H——housing 有房子；U——understanding 有心灵相通；S——sharing 有分享的喜悦；B——buying 有钱买想要的东西；A——and； 还有N——never 绝对不D——demanding 要求太高。

    wife还可以有另一种解释，W----witch 一个美女；I----intelligent 聪明伶俐；F----faithful 忠实；E----everyday 在每一天。