Carmen J. Bryant, August, 2002
12
3 million copies."
29
The Total Woman became a guide for attaining marital happiness
through staying at home, practicing submission, and making one's self attractive to be
with. It tried to strike a moderate position between the outspoken feminists of the day and
the stereotyped doormats, but it also placed the responsibility for a happy marriage
squarely upon the shoulders of the wife: "It is really up to her. She has the power."
30
In the end, however, Morgan focuses on the wife's "making herself desirable and
available" and not on becoming a woman of God.
Her chief interest seems to be in giving suggestions on how a wife can
revolutionize her marriage to make it "sizzle". . . . A wife is encouraged to
improve her marriage by admiring her husband, building up his masculine
ego, and lavishing hero-worship on him--all in cute, manipulative, or childish
ways that demean his intelligence.
31
With words even more explicit than those used in Me, Obey Him?, Morgan turns
her husband into a god: "It is only when a woman surrenders her life to her husband,
reveres and worships him, and is willing to serve him, that she becomes really beautiful
to him. She becomes a priceless jewel, the glory of femininity, his queen!"
32
As a result,
according to Morgan, her husband will give her what she wants.
Surrender, revere, worship, serve--these are religious words. Once again woman
is encouraged to give to man what rightly belongs only to God. A man who accepts such
29
"The Story of Fleming H. Revell Company," (Jan. 26, 2002 <http://www.bakerbooks.com/corporate/
revell3.shtml>). Taken from Fleming H. Revell Company: The First 125 Years, 1870-1995 (Grand Rapids:
Revell, 1995).
30
Marabel Morgan, The Total Woman (Grand Rapids: Revell, 1973), 80. This view is widely held. Alsdurf
and Alsdurf quote Marvin De Hann: "The primary responsibility for a good relationship in marriage lies
with the wife. If the wife is submissive to her husband, they'll have a good relationship" (85; quoting
"Have You Excommunicated Your Spouse?" in The Good News Broadcaster, March 1982, 47). Alsdurfs
cite similar views from John MacArthur.
31
Jeanne Kun, "A Woman of Strength, Who Can Find?" Reprint. The Alliance for Faith and Renewal.
1981.
32
Morgan, 80.