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Answer either A or B

A
The texts in section A focus on the trend "Living Apart Together" (L.AT.). Write apaper (700-1000 words) in which you answer the following questions. Answer the questions separately.

1.
Ð

Explain what "Living Apart Together" is, and give an outline of the different views presented in texts 2 and3. Text 3 is a personal comment. How is that reflected in its tone and style? Give examples from the text.
Taking your starting point in text 1, discuss what the consequences of L.AT. might be. 2. 3.

Texts

Page 2

1.
2.
J.

Rosemary Bennett, "Couples that live apart...stay together", an article from The Times website, }l4ay 72,2001 . . . .

Jill Brooke, "Home Alone Together", an article fromThe New York Times website, }l4ay 4,2006 .
Gary Picariello, "Just What Modern Romance Needs", a comment from Associated Content website, March 30,2001

4
7

B
Write an essay (700-1000 words) in which you analyse and interpret Sky Brannon's short story "Fireweed". Your essay must include the following points:
- the way the story is structured
- the main theme

- a characterization of Baluta/Joel - the setting

Text
Skye Brannon, "Fireweed", a short story, 2009

Page
9

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A
TEXT
1

Rosemary Bennett

Couples that live apart...stay together
The unusual living arrangement of Shirley Denny and Peter Lawrence has raised eyebrows among friends and neighbours over the past two decades.
But today the couple, who have shared their lives but not their homes for 23 years, are part of a growing trend of people challenging the assumption that being in love must lead to s cohabiting.

New research estimates that there are now as many as two million couples who, despite being in a committed relationship, live separately. The number of couples who live apart together (LATÐ is now roughly the same as those who live under the same roof.
For Ms Denny and Mr Lawrence, whose attempt to live together failed dismally after just thtee months, the decision to live apart has been a triumph. It has, they insist, kept their relationship fresh while providing the ideal environment in which to bring up their four children (two from each partner's previous relationship).
To underline the point, they got married last year

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rs Professor

Ms Denny, 55, and Mr Lawrence, 61, are defined as "gladly apaÍt" LATs by Sasha Roseneil, of Sociology and Gender Studies at Leeds university and author of the rcport On Not Living With a Partner. Based on interviews with LATs in Yorkshire, she focused on why devoted couples should want to live alone and found that most had made a conscious decision to keep their domestic lives separate.

2e

"The/ have arrived

at this point sometimes because a previous cohabiting relationship has

broken down, or they do not want to impose a new partner on children from a previous relationship," she said.

minority, the "regretfully apaú", are forced into it by competing work commitments or family responsibilities.
She found only a small zs Professor Roseneil identified a third group, "undecidedly apart", who, while committed to one another, did not find themselves on the path towards cohabiting.

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Her findings bear out the first research on British LATs conducted by the University of Oxford research fellow John Haskey, who in 2005 estimated that up to two million couples were living in separate homes.
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living apart is popular among younger people, his study found hundreds of thousands of older couples between the ages of 35 and 59 were also choosing separate living. He estimated that up to 14 per cent of 50- to 59-year-olds were LATs. Using data from overseas, Professor Roseneil said that it was "highly probable" that LATs are on the increase. 'While

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In Sweden, which has witnessed similar trends in divorce, marriage and people living alone as Britain, the number of LATs has risen from just six per cent in 1993 to more than
14per centatthe last count five years ago.
Other experts agree that LATs are now part of the social landscape.

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ao

"When you hear about a couple choosing to live apart, no one thinks that's odd any more. They say that sounds fine, or even that it sounds like a good idea," said Penny Mansfield, the director of One Plus One, a charity which studies couples and family relationships.
However, she believes that there could be some serious implications for social cohesion increasing numbers of couples live apart.

if

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"When you have alarge number of selÊsufficient family units, that is good news for society. The more fragmentation you have the less good it is. The rise we have seen in lowgrader mental illness is increasingly linked to this sort of fragmentation," she said. (2001)

r of a less serious kind.

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TEXT

2

Jill Brooke

Home Alone Together
Two decades after V/oody Allen1 and Mia Farrow2 defied convention by living apart even after starting a family, researchers are seeing a surge in long-term, two-home relationships.

s

They have even identified a new demographic category to describe such arrangements: the "living apart together," or L.A.T., relationship. These couples are committed to sharing their lives, but only to a point.

Hard numbers are difficult to come by; the United States Census does not measure these relationships. However, a survey-based British study published last year by John Haskey, a statistician who heads the Family Demography Unit at the Department of Social Policy ro at Oxford University, estimated that a million couples in Great Britain are currently in L.A.T. relationships. Other recent studies have found the trend on the rise in Holland, Sweden, Norway, France andCanada.

David Popenoe, the co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers Universit¡r, a leading center of marriage and family studies, says that it is clear even from the fragmenrs tarY evidence available - "paftly what we know anecdotally, partly the fact that every other significant European trend in family life has turned out to be happening in America" -that L.A.T. relationships are on the rise in the United States, too. [...]

In an era of increased longevity, many older couples see L.A.T. relationships avoiding complicated inheritance issues, Professor Popenoe said. zo as a way

of

Younger couples often turn to L.A.T. arrangements after failed marriages, particularþ if there are children involved. According to widely accepted interpretations of American census statistics, when people remarry after divorce, the new marriages fail at a significantly higher rate - more than 60 percent, versus 50 percent or less for first marriages.
Jeannette Lofas, a clinical social worker and the founder of the Stepfamily Foundation, a counselingorganization inNew York, advocates living apart,because blended families are so vulnerable to internecine3 resentments and power struggles.

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t (b. 1935),

2 (b. 1945), American actress. 3 gensidigt ødelæggende.

American film director.

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'Although social pressures encourage stepfamilies blending, only one out of three stepfamilies survive," she said. '¿I always say to people, would you go on a plane to San Francisco with your child if you had a two-thirds chance of not surviving it?,'
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As much as anything, though, the rise in L.A.T. relationships may be due to a growing unwillingness to compromise, particularly among members of a generation known for their selÊinvolvement.

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"In many cases Baby Boomers want to have the freedom to live on their own terms,', said the author Gail Sheehy, whose latest book is ,S¿x qnd the Seasoned Woman. 'As you age, 35 you have more commitments and possessions in your life that you are attached to that the other person may not want to share.,,
When Donna Davis, 47, allbra:ian in Hattiesburg, Miss., met Jim Puckett, 59, a physician, in 1990, she didn't want to give up her apartment in town to move to his secluded rural home 10 minutes away.
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house is messy and full of all of his collected hobbies'" In their almost daily encounters, usually at her house, she said, "I feel like I get a lot of togetherness, and a lot of time to myself.',

"I like my quiet time," Ms. Davis said. "Jim's

+s

households, they have always found each other's requirements she wanted to modernize the kitchen in his house and enlarge his bathroom, he would have needed a music room for his piano if they had stayed at her house more than either was willing to contemplate.

Although they have periodically talked about marriage and the possibility of merging

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Even when there's plenty of money to soften the discomforts of sharing a home, many seem determined to avoid them.

C so t

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Professor Popenoe, of Rutgers, acknowledges that living apart makes sense for the elderþ and for divorced couples with children. For others, though, he worries that it might impaii the ability "to form long-term relationships."

Dr. Scott Haltzman, a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at Brown University and the author of The Secrets of Happity Married Men, agfees.
"One of the challenges of marriage is to learn how to live with a person and integrate that 55 person into your life," he said. "By living apart,you are losing the opportunity to gain that level of intimacy and cooperation." That scenario, he added assumés that oiher people,s needs ate animposition. Marriage presents an opportunity to learn selflessness as well as giving and forgiving, he said, whereas a long-term romantic arrangement that doesn,t involve cohabitation "glorifies individual needs." ¡. . 1
.

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60

But advocates of L.A.T. relationships, like Judye Hess, a family therapist in Berkeley, Calif., see them not only as an indicator of what's wrong in long-term relationships, but also as a potential solution. Ms. Hess, who has been part of an L.A.T. couple for eight years, is writing a book on the topic (which she has labeled "dual dwelling duos") with her companion, Simon Friedman, 47, a computer consultant.

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"Mafly people are trying to fit themselves into a very narrow model for long-term relationships that does not work for their personalities," said Ms. Hess, 61. If more people saw living apart as an option, she said, "it might save them a lot of pain and breakups."
(2006)

f)

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TEXT

3 Gary Picariello

Just What Modern Romance l{eeds: "Living Apart Together"
A New Termfor Couples Who Just DON'T Want to Commit gives the concept of the long-distance relationship a whole new meaning. Only this time, the distances aren't that long and the relationships are a lot more serious. It's called "Living Apart Together" (LAT) and as much of a contradiction as it seems, it is exactly what it says: a couple who - married or not - choose to live in different homes. Not even ¡ by necessity, but by choice.

It

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The trend of LATs started in the Netherlands says Italian sociologist Giuseppe Gesano, but the concept has spread like wildfire among nearly 50% of young couples in Europe, the United States and even farther abroad. ¡...1

with "Living Apart Togethers?"'Well, unlike many reiationships where the couple is forced to live apart due to distance, careers or any other variable, LATs are doing it because they want to. Check out these statistics: in Italy alone over 3 million couples are married but living in separate homes, 50% of un-married couples doing the same. Out of that amount 20%o won't ever marry, another 20o/o don't want kids and onein-three couples will end up separating. No wonder the Pope is stressing. And that's just Ls in Italy. In other countries similar statistics are becoming more and more the norm.
So what's the deal
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Whatever happened to getting married and living happily ever after? Experts say that within 10 years the habit of LAT-ing could change the dynamics of an entire population.
C

t .l
According to SmartAtlove.com, there may be several factors for this trend in co-habitation or the lack thereof:
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25

Parents who grew up in the more liberal 60s aren't as inclined to encourage their kids to follow the conventional norms of marriage. The autonomy and lifestyles of females has evolved as well, thus impacting the level of commitment in a relationship. Other factors include the availability of employment, the cost of housing and the economics of raising a family. sense when you

think about it: if familiarity breeds contempt, then having separate places to retreat to means that you're more likely to appreciate each other when you do get together. Plus, as the SmartAtlove.com article points out, no one person

I guess it makes some

Side 8 af 12 sider

can meet all your needs, so unless you're raising children together, why do you need to ¡o live together in the first place?

Age may also play into the concept of Living Apart Together. Current statistics say that toáay the average ager of women is 83 years old and that of men is 76. With those kinds of numbers and that kind of longevity many couples are saying "'What's the rush?" Well, maybe I'm looking at the glass half fuIl, but if people who aren't so good at things ¡s like compromise, negotiation, and/or commitment - all qualities needed to make a go at any relationship, especially marriage - then having their own space to retreat to during the rough times in a relationship could mean that the individual will continue to be not so good at compromise, negotiation, and/or commitment!

I'm feeling more and more like the minority here, but even during the roughest of times I +o kind of enjoy waking up in the morning and seeing my spouse happily snoring next to me.
Come to think of it maybe I just invented aNEV/ term for relationships that work: LTF Living Together Forever!

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(2007)

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I life expectancy