Uncle Sam's Brides: The World of Military Wives

Stone and Alt, themselves wives of military men, here chronicle with sympathy the nomadic, often frustrating lives of women married to American enlistees and officers. The picture they paint is grim: within the self-contained, socially stratified, conformist communities stationed at bases in the U.S. and abroad, standards of living may seem luxurious compared with those of earlier times, but families of lower-ranking personnel must often subsist on meager allowances even when obliged to shop in expensive neighboring cities. Moreover, the authors claim, wife abuse and marital separations are no strangers to military unions, and AIDS--contracted by the men through exposure to prostitutes--is not uncommon. Stone and Alt contend that a wife's ability to perform socially, as befits her husband's rank, makes or breaks his career and her domestic bliss. However, they add, the traditional power of military wives' clubs is declining as more women pursue their own careers. (May)