Letter: The family: still valued by young people and women

Sir: Helen Wilkinson presents the family as an option. It may not be. The first responsibility of a generation is to produce satisfactory successors. If the family is necessary for this, the attitudes she describes may be signs of the emergence of the ultimate self-indulgent decadence. I hope I am not right but, unlike many 'liberals', I am not sure, and I am very concerned.

Yours faithfully,

D. DEAN

North Chailey, East Sussex

21 September