I was addressing a small gathering in a suburban Virginia living room—a women’s group that had invited men to join them. Throughout the evening, one man had been particularly talkative, frequently offering ideas and anecdotes, while his wife sat silently beside him on the couch. Toward the end of the evening, I commented that women frequently complain that their husbands don’t talk to them. This man quickly nodded in agreement. He gestured toward his wife and said, “She’s the talker in our family.” The room burst into laughter; the man looked puzzled and hurt. “It’s true,” he explained. “When I come home from work, I have nothing to say. If she didn’t keep the conversation going, we’d spend the whole evening in silence.”

    This episode crystallizes the irony that although American men tend to talk more than women in public situations, they often talk less at home. And this pattern is wreaking havoc with marriage.

    The pattern was observed by political scientist Andrew Hacker in the late 1970s. Sociologist Catherine Kohler Riessman reports in her new book Divorce Talk that most of the women she interviewed—but only a few of the men—gave lack of communication as the reason for their divorces. Given the current divorce rate of nearly 50 percent, that amounts to millions of cases in the United States every year—a virtual epidemic of failed conversation.

    In my own research, complaints from women about their husbands most often focused not on tangible inequities such as having given up the chance for a career to accompany a husband to his, or doing far more than their share of daily life-support work like cleaning, cooking and social arrangements. Instead, they focused on communication: “He doesn’t listen to me.” “He doesn’t talk to me.” I found, as Hacker observed years before, that most wives want their husbands to be, first and foremost, conversational partners, but few husbands share this expectation of their wives.

    In short, the image that best represents the current crisis is the stereotypical cartoon scene of a man sitting at the breakfast table with a newspaper held up in front of his face, while a woman glares at the back of it, wanting to talk.

答案精析：根据题干中的wreaking havoc可直接定位至原文第二段最后一句，本题是在考查this pattern和marriage之间的关系。this pattern指的是前一句的讽刺：尽管美国男性在公共场合的讲话往往比女性多，但他们在家里讲的话却比女性少。文章在第一段第三句提到，女士们经常抱怨她们的丈夫不跟她们说话，随后在第三段第二句也说到，夫妻间缺乏沟通是导致离婚的主要原因。由此可推断this pattern（丈夫在家很少说话）对于婚姻来说是会造成伤害的，故正确答案为C。

错项排除：A项中的motivation表示正面的、积极的“动机”，而原文中出现的complain和divorce都表示负面的意思，A项与原文意思相悖，故排除。B项的influence过于宽泛，既可以表示正面影响，也可以表示负面影响，但原文中主要强调的是对于婚姻的伤害，也就是负面影响，B项不够具体，故排除。D项pressure虽然体现出了负面影响的意思，但原文第三段提到导致离婚的因素是缺乏交流，pressure一词的严重程度较轻，并不能直接导致离婚，故D项错误。

长难句分析：This episode crystallizes the irony that although American men tend to talk more than women in public situations, they often talk less at home.

本句主干为This episode crystallizes the irony…，为主谓宾结构。that至句末引导同位语从句，修饰irony，用于解释说明这一讽刺具体指的是什么。同位语从句中包含了一个由although引导的让步状语从句，其中more than women为比较状语，in public situations为地点状语。

句意为：这段插曲凸显了一个具有讽刺意味的事实：尽管美国男性在公共场合讲话往往比女性多，但他们在家里讲话却比女性少。