Rating:  Summary: Fascinating Womanhood Review: This book is a must read by all women who want to have a happy marriage. We have lost the art of being feminine due to the so called "women's rights movement". They have lied to us -- being a femine woman is our best defense regarding our so called 'rights'. If you DO NOT want a happy husband who cherishes, protects and provides for you, then don't read and apply the suggestions found in this book. I began appling this book a year ago. I can honestly say this past year has been filled with more happiness, love, and adoration than I have ever experience in the previous 26 years of marriage. I feel and am protected and provided for in such a way that I no longer doubt his love and desire to be married to me until death. This book will change your marriage if you apply the concepts of accepting your husband as he is; learn to be childlike in your anger, appreciation and trust; and become a domestic goddess. I can almost promise - he will then treat you as a King treats his Queen. What is taught in this book runs smack in the face of what we are taught about who we are as women of the 21st century. For those brave enough -- this book will change us and the course of this Nation.
Rating:  Summary: Helpful Review: This book could be dry and repetitive. In addition, it had fewer references to scripture than I would have liked. However, I have found it to be a useful tool. Most of the book centers on communication skills. To say that this book asks you to be phony isn't fair. What book on marriage doesn't ask you to use stock phrases such as "I hear you saying..." and "it makes me feel..."? This book suggests putting your problems and concerns, and even encouragement, in words that do not subtly or not-so-subtly insult your husband. And while the book emphasizes that good grooming and housekeeping make for a happy home, it gives equal weight to being of good character and being trustworthy. I recommend this book for those women who have been disappointed by other marriage books and whose husbands refuse to enter the counseling racket.
Rating:  Summary: A book that rewards a sophisticated reading Review: This book is fascinating (pun intended). Reviews of it -- including those on this web page -- are mixed and often passionate for good reason. The ideas are as explosive today as they were when the book was first published. Like any text, your reaction to this book will depend upon how you read it. It can be a joyful revelation, or a goad that drives you to fury, or a hilarious view into an antiquated perspective on gender relationships. Does this book suggest that a wife should put a bow in her hair and lisp praises for her husband's awesome strength and capability? Yes. Does it claim that doing so will improve her marriage? Yes. Can such techniques work in the long run? The jury still seems to be out on that. Manipulation in any relationship is deadly. But sincerely doing things that encourage others to be the best they can be is good from both a secular and a Christian perspective. It builds good mental health. Assuming that our gender makes us prefer certain kinds of behavior both in ourselves and in our mates, and that our ability to meet our own ideals of our gender affects our general happiness and self-esteem, it seems that giving and receiving gender-oriented encouragement is not a bad idea. I have never found a book that so clearly explained how I can cause my husband to feel good about himself as a man. I appreciate that. I look at this book not as a prescription for living -- which is how the author intended it, without question --- but as a sort of cook-book, full of good things to try. Or perhaps as a tool-kit to draw from to smooth over some rough times and make the good times more fun. Taken that way, I think _Fascinating Womanhood_ is a work of genius. It is jam-packed with things to try. At the very least you will learn a great deal about yourself and about your husband as you experiment with behavior and responses. If a long, interesting and ever-growing marriage is your goal, then read this book. It is bound to give you ideas to work with for many years to come.
Rating:  Summary: Putting the ball back in our court! Review: This is one of the best marriage books I have read. I looked at it as a marriage help book even if that was not how it was intended. With the kind of man I married, and the kind of relationship I was having, this book told me directly how I can cause change more clearly than any other marriage book I have read. The problem with the other books is that in order for the plan to work effectively the man has to do something, but in this book all the responsibility for making the marriage better falls on the woman. Some people hate the fact, but honestly it is more realistic. I must have easily read 15 help books, and it was this practical guide for bringing about my husbands strengths and sense of responsibility that has done the most to improve our marriage. It talks about selfless service, humility, and the power of a womans charm! I recommend this book for anyone who is yearning for a more traditional relationship but isn't quite sure how to make it happen, and even for those who are little rough around the edges and would like to be a little more feminine. It turns out my man really does lke a girly girl, even though he met me in the army! go fig. :) Some people feel this book requires they be fake. If you interpret it like that then your not reading it right. You can be yourself, just a softer, cuddlier, more lovable version. Don't delete the old version, just upgrade!
Rating:  Summary: Gotta be pragmatic... Review: Sure, it has MANY shortcomings, it is the Stepford wife handbook...but the fact of the matter is this: in a marriage, ideally, each partner would continually be working on diminishing his/her own behaviors that cause disharmony, and ignoring his/her spouse's faults. Ideally, men and women would do this equally. In the real world, this will never happen. How many MEN do you picture reading a book about how to make their WIFE feel happy and loved? I checked...there are 100 reviews of "Fascinating Womanhood", and of "Man of Steel and Velvet", the man's version...nine reviews. Give up on feminism--life's not fair and it's never going to be. You don't have to get married, but if you decide you want to, you as the woman are going to have to make it work, all on your own, if you can. Men just aren't interested. Now, you want to write a book for men on how they can convince every barely-legal beautiful girl they think they deserve, to have sex with them--then you'll have a best-seller!
Rating:  Summary: When trying to change your husband doesn't work. . . Review: I didn't mean to, but I found my self in love and married to a man that I couldn't live without and seemed to not be able to live with either. He was stubborn and refused to willingly change himself for the better. Finally, after our last really huge explosive argument when all seemed futile, (but in the end we were miserable without each other), I gave up on waiting for him to change and decided to work on myself for once. Reading this book helped me change my attitude about how I thought of and treated my husband. At first glance I thought, oh great, more work for me! But, the more I read and thought about what was written and how it applied to our relationship, I realised that alot of what the author was saying is that you need to treat your husband with love and respect and like he is the most important person in your life (much like how I treated him the first year we dated). This book also helped me take pride in the role I CHOSE to take in my family's life as a full-time mother. The book has its faults. A couple of the testimonials are a little on the extreme side and seem to justify spousal abuse, but if you keep on reading, the author makes it very clear that the wife is not a doormat, abuse is not acceptable, and the woman needs to remove herself and the children from the house. The other fault of the book is that it can appear to be a book about manipulating your husband. It is a very practical book, filled with many specific examples of what to say or do. It is not deep or intellectual. If you are looking for the Biblical, intellectual argument on the role of a wife, I found The Excellent Wife by Martha Peace very helpful and a good companion to this book.
Rating:  Summary: Fascinating Womanhood Review: This book is a must read by all women who want to have a happy marriage. We have lost the art of being feminine due to the so called "women's rights movement". They have lied to us -- being a femine woman is our best defense regarding our so called 'rights'. If you DO NOT want a happy husband who cherishes, protects and provides for you, then don't read and apply the suggestions found in this book. I began appling this book a year ago. I can honestly say this past year has been filled with more happiness, love, and adoration than I have ever experience in the previous 26 years of marriage. I feel and am protected and provided for in such a way that I no longer doubt his love and desire to be married to me until death. This book will change your marriage if you apply the concepts of accepting your husband as he is; learn to be childlike in your anger, appreciation and trust; and become a domestic goddess. I can almost promise - he will then treat you as a King treats his Queen. What is taught in this book runs smack in the face of what we are taught about who we are as women of the 21st century. For those brave enough -- this book will change us and the course of this Nation.
Rating:  Summary: Fascinating, no, Amazing, yes Review: I have read this book several times over, for other reasons, and have determined that it's teachings mainly facilitate abuse in male-female relationships (especially marriage) and does not empower anyone to adequately address problem issues with any degree of maturity, responsibility, liberty, rationality, etc. Upon reviewing the book, I am marveled by how wonderfully people, who claim to be of character depth and intellectual maturity, can stuff themselves in short sighted ideologies, as suggested in our very own "Fascinating Womanhood". Although Andelin claims that women ought not reduce themselves to the level of doormat or "Severe" abuse, she does not empower them with the necessary tools to avoid such happenings. Indeed, the broadly educated or uneducated, careerless woman with no "masculine skill" is encouraged to escape the confines of "Severe" mental and physical abuse by removing herself and the children. The suggestions in this well respected reading are, at best, surface and pacifying. They are insulting to men and women. I have read all of the reviews and noted a peculiar pattern of thinking among those in support and those in opposition. Clearly, there is intellectual and character disparity in favor of the cons. Has anyone noticed? If we are to simulate, as many believe, the role of the man in the home to the love that Christ has for the church, then his role, as head, is a service oriented and sacrificial one. He is there to take a leadership and initiating role of service and sacrifice. A role such as this requires utmost care, detail, emotional intelligence, spiritual vigor, maturity, sensitivity, etc, all of which most men are not properly reared to exhibit. If men were being reared with these engrained qualities, they would not be overly dependent on women to placate serious inward character deficiencies as adults. The woman is the man's helpmeet, his equal, not his "fascinating...childlike" helper. It is time people are rightly measured against the bible teachings we claim to support.
Rating:  Summary: This is a must read for all women! Review: This book really works. Don't pay attention to the negative reviews up here. One can expect a topic like this to be blasted by those who feel threatened by what this book says. Just give it a read.
Rating:  Summary: The system didn't work in the long haul Review: I first read this book in my teens, twenty-five years ago. I thought it was wonderful and I based a large part of my life and who I was on its instructions. It worked to some extent - people told me I was very feminine. Well, being feminine didn't do me much good. Here I am, twenty-five years later, with a husband who refuses to work or be a father to his children. I am the family's breadwinner and the children's guide and disciplinarian. My husband lives at home like a overgrown teenager who lets Mom bear all the responsibilities. I feel like I've been duped. I based my life on system that didn't deliver for me.
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