

Judith (left), who is a Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis and Sociology at New York University, spent more than a decade interviewing and observing different types of families in California, South Africa, and China. This book compellingly (and wittily) draws together her ethnographic analysis of the various types of families with which she spent time: gay men in California, polygynous families in South Africa, and the matrilineal, matrilocal Mosuo families in China.
She is straightforward about her goals in exploring these families. She seeks to show the need to value sexual and family diversity, asserting,
'A democratic state has no business dictating or even favoring any particular brand of intimacy or family life.'
(p. 200) Indeed, she suggests parallels between the histories of monogamous and plural marriages, and she challenges feministspp. 205-06) to respect
'the intimate choices of women who do not share feminist desires.'

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