Behavior: The American Family: Future Uncertain

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The families share their services, following a schedule that calls for each couple to do all of the cooking and housework for one week. "That's KP once every six weeks per couple, which keeps everybody happy," says Ethel. Her husband, for instance, has curtailed his practice so that he can spend one day a week at home on child-care and cooking duty. Says Ethel, "The truth is that most men are deprived of a close relationship with their children, and our men are finding out what they've been missing. It's groovy."

Disillusionment with the traditional family has led to other alternative lifestyles. In Boston, David, 36, a divorced architect, and Sarah, 29, a researcher for a consulting firm, have an "arrangement"; like an increasing number of other American couples, they live together in David's Cambridge walkup apartment in a "marriage" that has endured solidly for two years without benefit of legal sanction. They sometimes join David's ex-wife and his son, Jonathan, 5, for dinner. Bubbly, attractive Sarah still maintains her own apartment and sometimes spends a few days there.

Both Sarah and David are convinced that their relationship is superior to a conventional marriage. It is the legal tie, they believe, that is the subtle influence in making a marriage go sour. "On the small scale," says David, "there's no difference, except that you know you could call it off when you want to. That makes you more careful and considerate. You don't say subconsciously, 'Oh, she's always going to be there.' So you make that little extra effort." Only under one circumstance would Sarah and David consider a legal marriage: if they decided to have children.

Doubts about conventional family life have also led to the growth of another phenomenon: the "single-parent family." No longer fearful about complete ostracism from society, many single girls who become pregnant now choose to carry rather than abort their babies and to support them after birth without rushing pell-mell into what might be a disastrous marriage.

Population Explosion

Judy Montgomery, 21, is a major in political science at the University of Cincinnati. She lives in the exclusive suburban area of Indian Hill with her parents and her son Nicky, 16 months. She became pregnant at 19 but did not want to get married. "I think having a mother and a father are important for a child, but Nicky can be raised so he isn't scarred. There are now substitutes in society that will allow him to grow up fatherless. I have no feeling of guilt. My only real hassle is with guys I meet who are interested in me, and I say, 'Oh, I have to go home and take care of my kid.' "