Demographic indicators show that Americans in the postwar
period were more eager than ever to establish families. They quickly
brought down the age at marriage for both men and women and brought
the birth rate to a twentieth century height after more than a hundred （1）
years of a steady decline, producing the “baby boom.”These young （2）
adults established a trend of early marriage and relatively large
families that Went for more than two decades and caused a major （3）
but temporary reversal of long-term demographic patterns. From
the 1940S through the early 1960s, Americans married at a high rate （4）
and at a younger age than their Europe counterparts.（5）
　　Less noted but equally more significant, the men and women on who（6）
formed families between 1940 and 1960 nevertheless reduced the（7）
divorce rate after a postwar peak; their marriages remained intact to
a greater extent than did that of couples who married in earlier as well（8）
as later decades. Since the United States maintained its dubious（9）
distinction of having the highest divorce rate in the world, the
temporary decline in divorce did not occur in the same extent in （10）
Europe. Contrary to fears of the experts, the role of breadwinner and
homemaker was not abandoned.