Should society or the step-parents themselves be made to pay for destroying the lives of their children?

There is much to be said about family relationships. There is much to be said of families that are borne of divorce, and confused by new matrimonies which put children against their new surrogate parents, or step-parents. These children are the original children of anger, and have the resentment of society served to them in no uncertain terms, and without care for their rights and and sentiments.

I know of such families, and always the children are made to suffer for the selfishness and jealousies of their parents. It is reprehensible in the extreme to countenance that the egos and lusts of the prospective couples should gamble away the happiness of their own children for the sake of fulfilling sexual needs.

What to do then to protect further generations from the brutalities of unsympathetic usurpers of innocent feelings? Just as many cruelties occur within legitimate families as they reputedly do in surrogate families, so why all the fuss?

This is true, but have we not learned anything from David Copperfield and his Mr. Murdstone (from the same novel by Charles Dickens), and the horror of such interlopers who intrude on the lives of the helpless, and destroy them to satisfy their perverse ambitions?

No, the children of anger have all the right, and new laws should be passed to protect them from such traumas. Older laws should have greater enforcement to protect the children from egotistical machinations that put their very futures at risk.

I am not for the break-up of any family, but when it comes to the happiness and potential of young lives, then it would be better to break-up such false arrangements than to prolong the agony for the sake of social appearances, and, worse yet, the base sexual needs of the parents.

Of course this isn't true of all step-families. Some are formed out of love, of concern for the future of the family, of security and the bonds that are forged in traditional family situations---many of us recall the quaint example that a BRADY BUNCH imparted---and we sigh, ''if only all step-families were like that!''

But, alas, it is not true in most cases, so Society beware! There are rapacious miscreants out there waiting to take advantage of helpless ladies with children to feed on the bounty of their love as well as refrigerators. They intrude on the domicile tranquility to impose their own unhappiness on them while reaping all the advantages they can take from their new family.

Society itself must be made to pay for not stopping such evil types from intruding on the sanctity of a legitimate family.

That is all I have to say. What do you think?