An important contribution to the study of mental illness, gender roles, and family interaction. . . . An insightful and well-written book demonstrating the pervasive consequences of gender roles for the deepest levels of mind and emotion.
'Opens a window onto the lives of the mentally ill and their families.'
Warren's analysis is painstaking and illuminating, and there is plenty of material here to interest those concerned with issues of gender and mental illness.
The women make the author's major points in riveting fashion, speaking eloquently of enforced dependency and subjugation, the helplessness of rigid and constantly reinforced gender-role boundaries, and outright manipulation by their husbands.
Can marriage make women go crazy? Carol Warren addresses this question by emphasizing the connections between gender-sterotypical behavior and the institutionalization of married women in the 1950s, using interviews collected . . . during 1957-61. . . . An interesting sociological reworking of the original pychologically oriented interpretation of the interviews.
CAROL A. B. WARREN is a professor of sociology at the University of Kansas and author of The Court of Last Resort: Mental Illness and the Law.
