This bridal issue goes beyond the usual concept of wedding advice and explores the family as a social segment. Thus the excerpt here from "Future Shock" by Alvin Toffler, a book about the stress and disorientation experienced by people facing too much change too quickly in their environment. Random House, copyright 1970 by Alvin Toffler.

The shattered family

The American family may be headed toward some profound changes, says the author of "Future Shock." The "Mom-Pop-and-Kids" structure may be on its way out, to be replaced in part by communal families, homosexual households and "professional parents” who will raise your child for you.

By Alvin Toffler

The family has been called the "giant shock absorber" of society, the place to which the bruised and battered individual returns after doing battle with the world, the one stable point in an increasingly flux-filled environment. As the superindustrial revolution unfolds, this "shock absorber" will come in for some shocks of its own.

Social critics have a field day speculating about the family. The family is "near the point of complete extinction," says Ferdinand Lundberg, author of "The Coming World Transformation.”

"The family is dead except for the first year or two of child raising," according to psychoanalyst William Wolf. "This will be its only function." Pessimists tell us the family is racing toward oblivion— but seldom tell us what will take its place.

Family optimists, in contrast,

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