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This report investigates future trends in marriage and the family. The project was started because of the revolutionary changes in marriage and family life in the Netherlands since about 1965 (Chapter 1). A brief review of the history of marriage and the family shows that the characteristics and functions of this institution have changed considerably with time. A search of the scientific literature on the future of marriage and the family shows a need for well founded research on future trends in marriage and the family as a whole (Chapter 2). Experts were consulted to study the future of marriage and the family, and results were processed by the Delphi method, developed in research on the future.Chapter 4 discusses the merits and shortcomings of research on the future in general, specially by the Delphi method.Research was concentrated on the following questions: (Chapter 3)1. What changes did the selected experts expect in marriage and the family in the next fifteen years? (to about 1990)2. What factors influenced to the experts' opinion the changes in marriage and the family?3. What changes did the experts want in marriage and the family in the next fifteen years?4. To what extent did the experts' field of expertise and personal values in fluence their expectations and desires for changes?The concept of expert was defined widely in this research, namely persons who are professionally strongly involved in marriage and the family in view of their publications, their field of activity or other things. The experts were consulted in two rounds, each time by a mailed questionnaire. The purpose of the second round was to clarify and deepen the results from the first round. Respondents in the first round were 155 and in the second 126 persons from four sectors of society and from eleven scientific disciplines. Respondents from the four sectors of society were scientists, field workers, policy makers and opinion formers. The data were collected in the period from the end

Rede Wageningen, 25 september 1980