>>I suspect that by the time my grandsons become grandparents the word 'family' will take its place next to 'tribe' and 'clan.'
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>I think you're wrong. We've been to 6 weddings in the last 14 months (and were invited to another, but it coincided with Southwest Fox). What is different about these weddings is that almost all of the brides and grooms were in their 30s. The youngest was 26 or 27.
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>Tamar

I live in a 55+ community with about 300 homes and I'm at the upper end of the age span here.
There's a huge difference in the makeup of couples at the upper end vs those at the lower end.
Without exception, the uppers couples, as I was, are married and have had one and only one spouse and that spouse is of a different gender.
With the lowers, that situation is the exception.
We have 5 same sex couples that I know of. At least a dozen hetero couples are not married.
I don't know a single couple in that group that contains people that have been together from the beginning.
There probably are some but I haven't met them.
The predominant situation in that group though, is a single, divorced woman.
They're all over the place and they tend to huddle in packs.

Granted this is a small sample and the economic situation is not typical.