Behavior: Single Motherhood

"I see no other way out," Actress Lupe Velez wrote in 1944 before committing suicide. She was taking her life, she explained, because she was pregnant and her lover refused to marry her. Times have changed. During the past two years, such unwed public figures as Actresses Vanessa Redgrave and Mia Farrow and—just last week—Irish Firebrand and Member of Parliament Bernadette Devlin have chosen another way: they have openly and happily given birth to their babies. In an era of general sexual permissiveness, this new tolerance for unwed motherhood is not confined to...