Includes index.

In this groundbreaking work, cultural observer Sheehy reveals a hidden phenomenon--increased vitality in women's sex and love lives after fifty. This is a new universe of passionate, liberated women--married and single--who are unwilling to settle for the stereotypical roles of middle age and are now realizing they don't have to. As life spans grow longer and as societal constraints continue to loosen, older women--free of the exhausting demands of young children, needy husbands, and demanding careers--find themselves ready to pursue the passionate life. They embrace their "second adulthood" as a period of reawakening. Combining interviews and research, this book gives voice to more than a hundred colorful women, whose stories tell of wives who reinvigorate their marriages after their children leave the nest, as well as divorced, widowed, and long-single women who find new dreams and new loves.--From publisher description