Caroline Bird collates the sociological, psychological and economic histories of two-paycheck families; offers cool assessments of the child-care crisis, changing sex-and-power alignments, and child-bearing timetables. Working wives have lifted millions of families into the middle class, but a still wife cleans the house and cares for the children more often than her husband; private and public accounting assigns his dollars more power than hers, and most chilling of all, the chances of her marriage dissolving rise 2 percent for every additional $1,000 she earns. There are recitations of the experiments of "lifestyle pioneers" trying to balance demands of family and career, and a far-out feminist vision of the future. The author offers an abundance of astute reporting but not a coherent, persuasive feminist philosophy that considers class, opportunity, and traditional values as opposed to purely economic arguments for women's occupational empowerment.