These statistics were indeed troubling for those Americans—the vast majority—who imagined that the two-parent nuclear family anchored national stability. Contemporary reports indicated that illegitimacy rates began to rise rapidly after 1963. The rates among blacks were around 23 percent in 1963, compared to around 2 percent among whites, and jumped to 36 percent in 1970, compared to 3 percent among whites.84 Divorce rates also increased (after declines from 1946 through 1958), from 9.2 per 1,000 married couples in 1960 to 11.2 in 1968.85 The trends seemed relentless, threatening the stability
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