The American family seems beset with challenges, yet remains the hope and cornerstone of our society. Rising divorce rates, more abortions, fewer children, more women leaving the home to work, declining parental authority, the increased permissiveness of our time, the “depersonalizing” effects of modem urban living these and other phenomena are putting severe strains on the family as an institution. But the family may be a stronger and more resilient force than some people think. Wellesley College sociologist Mary Jo Bane makes a good case that it is in a new book, “Here to Stay,” the fruit of a research study sponsored by the Camegie Corporation. A .For one thing, she finds that the historical evidence does not support fanciful forecasts that the family’s demise is imminent. Families from the beginning had their challenges. The ideal “bappy family’ of days past didn’t exist in as many cases as some folks imagine. But as today, most stayed together and worked out life’s problems, The idea that our communities were more stable in the old days is an illusion, Ms. Bane writes. For For example, in Boston between 1840 and 1850 and between 1850 and 1860, only 34 per cent of the population lived there for an entire decade. So modernday transfer of many families from one area to another is nothing new. Death rates int he past were almost as high as divorce rates today. The proportion of children affected by what sociologists call “parental disruption” has actually gone down over the last century. A divroce rate reaching close to 40 per cent of marriages is cause for deep concern. But because rremarviages are running practically neck and neck with divorces, it is not marriage itself that is being rejected, says the researcher-writer. The working mother is another fairly new phenomenon we sometimes view with alarm. less than 15 per cent of mothers held paying jobs in 1940, but today some 45 per cent do. Yet studies have shown that the difference in the amount of time working and nonworking mothers spend with, their children is “surprlsingly small.” Rather than threatening the family, many of the recent changes in familyelife have been positive, or can positive, Ms. Bane argues. Can’t marriages that endure voluntarily and not because divorce is socially unacceptable or ecnomiclly infeasible to more satisfying and successful? she asks. Positive studies on family life are heartening, as are such pxrograms as National Family eek held last November, and the annual family life conference here in Utah Valley. The great institution of the family, like so may other cherished institutions and organizations, can use some promoting. For all its problems, it remains the best hope for a healthy, wholesome and stable society, So They Soy “Some members of our staff are absolutely convinced that the election was stolen. We are investigating to see whether we have enough evidence to mount a successful challenge.” – George Bogdanich, a spokesman for Ed Sadlowski who was recently defeated by Lloyd McBride in an election for the presidency of the steel workers’ union.