ABSTRACT
As the institutional unit through which every society replaces its population, the family must inevitably be altered if population growth is to be effectively curbed by limiting fertility. This truth tends to be evaded, however, because the family is valued as a goal in itself and hence is not easily treated as an instrumentality to some other goal. The reluctance of the population limitation movement to consider policies affecting the family gives rise to the question of whether existing trends in the American family will affect fertility anyway. Specifically, are the changes now occurring such as to suggest a weakening of the family and hence an eventual reduction in fertility? Looking at two key aspects of the family—family formation and family dissolution—we find no affirmative evidence. On the contrary, the age at marriage remains remarkably young and the proportion ever marrying is higher than at any time in our history. The rise in illegitimacy since World War II does not mean a preference for nonmarital reproduction, and the rise may be reversed. Although the legal divorce rate has risen, this refers to legal dissolution and does not reflect dissolutions from informal separation and desertion, which may have declined; nor does it disclose that the rising divorce rate has been accompanied by a high rate of remarriage, or that it has been balanced by a declining rate of widowhood, with the result that the rate of marital dissolution from both causes combined has remained stable in the United States. The strength of the American family explains why the birth rate has generally been high enough to provide a substantial rate of natural increase and why, without an effective policy in the future, a sharp decline in fertility seems unlikely.
