Wellesley College professor Hertz (More Equal than Others
) gathers stories of women along with supporting data to assert knowledgeably what has grown obvious in recent years: with increased education and financial independence, women are bypassing the traditional family structure and creating their own models. The lives of women have been transformed by 1970s' feminism, and although many women still consider marriage essential to motherhood, their attachment to work and the sense of autonomy it engenders sidelines, in many cases documented here, the supremacy of a traditional marriage with children. Hertz chronicles the sense of women in their 30s feeling "stuck." Instead of becoming so-called spinsters of ages past, women have overcome the social stigma to craft a new definition of motherhood as legitimate and valuable. Hertz tracks the ways many women advanced intrepidly: approaching a sperm donor bank, reconstructing a father profile once the child is born ("ghostly but present"), chancing pregnancy with an iffy romantic partner (and bearing the legal ramifications) and building a transracial family through adoption or a "transacting family" made up of committed gay partners. In this grounded, accessible study, Hertz also poses some challenging questions about the future role of fathers. (Oct.)
