HER INFINITE VARIETY

There are 14,700 books on women in the New York Public Library, and this is the second of the season. It is much more of a study in depth than the Beacon symposium- American Women (p. 608) while also dealing with the name dilemmas of her diversification as wife, mother and working woman. Mr. Hunt, who has a tremendous amount of material to draw on but keeps it diverting, reviews the many faces of women in different centuries and other cultures; the erroneous not lons about her (the weaker sex is stronger biologically and maintain intellectual partly); the seven ""disconnected"" ages with the time between 40 and 65 as the most poorly structured. Later he ""disassembles her"". She is then viewed as a lover, before and during the ""broad daylight"" of marriage; as a housewife trapped by homemaking and nurturant tasks which are not enough; as a mother- again not unalloyed satisfaction; as a companion (surprisingly the role she most prizes); and on the job- with the new cool mood of the working woman. Hunt from the start advocates that only by living the ""manifold life"" does woman today succeed in being both happy and truly feminine and he has traced her evolution from chaine Longue to swivel chair and supported it with some starting findings. The market should be obvious- cherchez la femme- she should not be hard to find since this is stimulating, entertaining and edifying.