It is difficult to determine what public investment could offset the current deterioration of child well-being and social dislocation in Great Britain, following family fragmentation and the collapse of the institution of marriage. The eclipse of the institutions that sustain the country's moral environment is more than a problem at the level of socialization or of social structure, with individuals isolated and estranged from family responsibilities and membership. Given that the family is the primary arena for moral development, its rejection brings the loss of those moral traditions that underpin basic social sympathy and identity and serve to legitimize authority. In their absence, law becomes a technique for controlling behavior; coercion necessarily becomes the only instrument available for the maintenance of minimal social control, and individual submission depends on cost-benefit analyses. If we are now asking how the enforcement of regulations can keep society from disorder, this indicates how radical and unprecedented is the modern abandonment of the family. 64 references