The paper looks at leading tendencies and dynamics of marital relations in the period between 1992 and 2002 in Russia and the world. On the basis of data obtained from a social psychological study, the authors conclude that the institute of monogamous marriage is in a state of crisis. 180 couples, which had applied to get married, were studied with the aim of establishing their dominant motives and correlation of motivation with marriage satisfaction and stability. Data on marriage satisfaction in dysfunctional families suggest that modern family is incapable of providing conditions for realization of leading marriage motives.