Situation and selected trends in the evelopment of the present-day family in Russia and St. Petersburg

The article presents many detrimental phenomena that presently taking place in the life of the marriage and the family. They are reflections of the harsh situation that has followed the changes in Russia, and which is complicated and painful for Russians. Among the negative and destabilising factors one may list the dropping number of new marriages, the rising number of divorces and incomplete families, the drop of the birth-rate, the rise in the number of abortions, the surge in the number of children bom outside marriages, and the rise of social orphanhood. The escalation of threats (?) to the families is beyond their adaptive capacity, as well as the capacity of social services