Implications of relationship changes

• Worrying challenge to the traditional family
• Increase in promiscuity, cohabitation, divorce, illegitimacy, single-parents = BAD
• Easier access to divorce & abortion are worrying
• Equal rights undermines the essential differences between genders
• State support is costing too much - reduces individual responsibility
• Single-parent families cannot function properly
• Lack of traditional = educational failure, deliquency & drug abuse - UNDERCLASS?

• Women have less to gain from marriage
• Divorce may help escape from conflict/violence
• Changes are good as they reflect an increased ability to feel independent
• Many of the problems cited from single-parents are more likely to originate from poverty or "bad homes" rather than "broken homes"
• Lone-parenting could be the result of positive choice
• Little incentive in gaining the low income/poor housing provided by the state.

DENNIS - many single parent families have committed fathers. Cohabitation & illegitimacy often conceal what could be nuclear families

CHESTER - most reconstituted families are "neo conventional". Biggest change is the role of the wife.

BROWN - fewer "shotgun weddings" which means more stable relationships - less rushed!

In conclusion, although the family has changed this does not necessarily mean that it has disintergrated. Some family values are still maintained thhrough many different types of household.