burden on these working-class families, many of whom manage to get by on less than $10,000
a year, but then slip ever more deeply into debt to purchase cars, washing machines, colored
television sets, and other prized symbols of social mobility. And though the women's
movement and the sexual revolution have indeed reached the working class, the result has
not been "liberation" but an intense strain on marriages which, however much the individuals
may try, remain traditional because of the social, psychological, and economic realities in
which their lives are embedded.
The author's observations, based on well over a thousand hours of in-depth personal
interviews with wives and husbands of fifty working-class families and a comparison group of
twenty-five professional middle-class families, make Worlds of Pain, the most valuable insight
into the dynamics of working-class family life available today.
Lillian Rubin, herself the child of a working-class family, writes with the luminous clarity of
a fine novelist in poignantly describing the reality of a life that, "despite all modern
conveniences," still "costs worlds of pain."
a year, but then slip ever more deeply into debt to purchase cars, washing machines, colored
television sets, and other prized symbols of social mobility. And though the women's
movement and the sexual revolution have indeed reached the working class, the result has
not been "liberation" but an intense strain on marriages which, however much the individuals
may try, remain traditional because of the social, psychological, and economic realities in
which their lives are embedded.
The author's observations, based on well over a thousand hours of in-depth personal
interviews with wives and husbands of fifty working-class families and a comparison group of
twenty-five professional middle-class families, make Worlds of Pain, the most valuable insight
into the dynamics of working-class family life available today.
Lillian Rubin, herself the child of a working-class family, writes with the luminous clarity of
a fine novelist in poignantly describing the reality of a life that, "despite all modern
conveniences," still "costs worlds of pain."
"The affluent and happy worker of whom we have heard so
much in recent decades doesn't exist," declares Lillian Rubin in this
brilliant and moving account of the angers, frustrations, and small
joys of life in the American white working class today. She describes
the grim childhood memories of the men and women who make up
what has been called "the silent majority," their troubled marriages,
uncommunicative sex lives, unfulfilling work, and all too costly leisure.
In doing so, she uncovers frightening ambiguities in the lives of
people to whom America promised so much, but delivered so little.
Middle-class aspirations have placed an almost intolerable
much in recent decades doesn't exist," declares Lillian Rubin in this
brilliant and moving account of the angers, frustrations, and small
joys of life in the American white working class today. She describes
the grim childhood memories of the men and women who make up
what has been called "the silent majority," their troubled marriages,
uncommunicative sex lives, unfulfilling work, and all too costly leisure.
In doing so, she uncovers frightening ambiguities in the lives of
people to whom America promised so much, but delivered so little.
Middle-class aspirations have placed an almost intolerable
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