Rating: 
Summary: A bold statement in today's world!
Review: Martha Peace really knows how to tell it like it is! She gives you a good dose of tough love that is fully backed by scripture and never appears argumentative. She shares her testimony with us right up front, so we understand where she was in her walk and why she felt inspired to write this book. The book starts off by covering foundational truths about God, sin and marriage, then focuses on the wife's responsibilities (1) to Christ, (2) in her home, and (3) to her husband. The core of the book is on the "s" word (submission), and I appreciated the way Peace handled the topic. She also includes a great section that helps a wife overcome any communication or conflict-solving challenges she may have. She even talks about dealing with fear, loneliness and anger (a big one for me!). All in all this was a really great read. I learned quite a bit and I still refer to it often. I must say that this book has really helped my marriage blossom, and it has given me a direction for my own life that I didn't have before. I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking into this subject. It was good reading and you didn't feel as if someone was "preaching" at you. Cris
Rating:
Summary: What excellent guidence!!!!!
Review: I didn't grow up in a christian home and my parents were divorced when I was extremely young! Therefore I never had the "roles" of husband and wife laid out for me to observe. This book gives excellent advice and guidence on the subject of being a biblical wife. Even if you are single, as am I, this book is a great resource to see what will be expected of you and whether a true biblical marriage is something you should be praying about. I HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone! Each girlfriend who has gotten engaged over the last year has received this as a gift from me. It's that good!
Rating:
Summary: No fluff here! Biblically sound and life changing!
Review: Praise God there are women like Martha Peace who are willing to stand up for the truth in our warped, feminist society and proclaim what the Word of God says our roles as women are to be. I must say I was shocked at one of the reviews I read. Being a submissive, God honoring wife does NOT mean we are door mats. It means we choose to obey God and lay down our rights! Martha Peace does an excellent job of pointing women to Scripture and challenging them to compare what they have been taught by the World with what God has to say about the matter. I'm afraid we have become so indoctrinated by the feminist agenda of our day, that it's easy to be decieved. I taught this bible study in my home (there is a study guide that she has written to acccompany this book) and it was life-changing to the ladies that attended! If you are not interested in what God has to say about your role as a wife, don't buy this book. If you are content to live for yourself and ignore God's mandate for you, then don't waste your money. If however, you are sold out to the Lord Jesus Christ, if you are ready to obey Him no matter what the cost, if you want to know what the Word says about your role as a wife and mother, then prayerfully read this book and be prepared to be drastically changed by God and for your marriage to be renewed and strengthened in a new and powerful way! God bless you as you seek Him first in your life! Stacy McDonald
Editor-in-Chief Homeschooling Today magazine
Rating: 
Summary: It's hard to be "the excellent wife"
Review: I read this book to supplement a Bible study I was doing with a married lady while I was engaged. It was good for me to read, in that I realized that marriage is not always a "walk in the park." (When you're engaged, those rose-colored glasses tend to taint the potential hardships of marriage--you know, the "love will keep us together" mentality.) HOWEVER...I feel that the book was not written with much grace. Situations can arise that don't fall into her charts and categories--this causes you to feel less than "excellent" when you are unable to choose one of the routes she maps out for an excellent wife.
Rating: 
Summary: Pat answers and irresponsible Bible Interpretation!
Review: My wife came to me in tears over this book: "Is this really what I have to be? I have enough esteem problems without this baggage!" Too true. I'm an academic who has been over the subject of women's role in a Christian marriage for years and this book reads like a recipe for marital disaster in the 21st Century. Martha Peace writes from her personal experience as a high strung and willful person who experienced a professional burnout and found happiness in staying at home and caring for her family. Her error (both academically and doctrinally) is in how she backfits her personal experience AS doctrine for how God wants EVERYONE to work out their marriage relationship. I have news for Mrs. Peace: God doesn't call women to be door mats, and 'helpmeet' means 'corresponding partner' not 'single track dedicated servant of her husband.' Personal experience exaggerated to the level of doctrine-for-all is the first error of this book, but only the beginning of the problems you'll encounter in its pages. The book IS MISSING several critical components: Context based scriptural quotations (almost every opinion is offered with a 'ripped from it's context' prooftexted, e.g.Eph.5:23ff.) As has been pointed out by every cynic with a 5th grade education, you can make the Bible say anything...if you leave out enough context. Anything approaching modern gender language: this book reads like it was written in 1910. All references to humans are 'man' and so forth. It's like the last 40 years of literary convention has passed by the author unnoticed. This alone leaves my wonder how out of touch she and her editors are. The content is also crippled in this respect: Peace doesn't even MENTION women working outside the home unless it is to heap scorn on it as a practice of abandonment of wifely duties. The fact that there are many different cultures that Christians must live and work in is neither mentioned or even alluded to. Peace seems to assume that all people EVERYWHERE live in suburban neighborhoods in Deep-South-Bible-Belt-Georgia where real men are real men who bring home the bacon. Finally, Peace gives a troubleshooting section that will tell you (the women, who are the presumed audience) 'what to do when this or that happens.' This section surprised me, because it read like a car repair manual. ('If backfiring through the carburetor, adjust the idle airscrew UP until the engine falters, then DOWN a 1/4 turn.') The style would be humorous if the situation wasn't so grave. Even more disturbing was Martha Peace' claims that feelings of lonliness, hopelessness and frustrations are a result of THE WOMAN'S SIN. (In the diagnostics section, she acknowledges only once that lonliness may have something to do with the man!) This book isn't just wrong headed and out of date; it is a serious hazard to women everywhere who want to determine God's will for how they are to interact with their husbands. The author doesn't evaluate schools of thought based on their merits, she autocratically brushes them aside and does not even acknowledge the last 50 years of blood, sweat and tears that have been poured into the (occasionally) responsible evaluation of this subject by Evangelicals and mainline Protestants. This work reads like an an instruction manual from God. Too bad it's a fraud. This issue doesn't have any simple answers, but that's all that Excellent Wife: A Biblical Perspective offers. Lacking in perspective, scholarship, history, and (sadly) Biblically responsible exegesis, this book should be on the list to keep OUT of the church library. For some responsible material from a Christian perspective, see 'The Five Love Languages', 'Love, Honor & Forgive', 'Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts' and 'Fit to Be Tied : Making Marriage Last a Lifetime'. Each does a responsible job of addressing these issues while acknowledging that the church has historically abused the concept of Biblical submission and attempted to set straight places where the church has gone wrong with it. If you love your daughter, sister, wife or friend, steer them *AWAY* this book as an authoritative source. I'd sooner trust Texe Marrs and Peter Ruckman on Bible translations than take Martha Peace seriously about any marriage but her own.
Rating:
Summary: A must for new or "seasoned" wives!
Review: This book was a key factor in saving my marriage. My husband had left me and I was a wreck. My attitude was bad and I felt justified until a friend gave me a copy of the book. Martha holds back nothing and I was completely convicted, realizing my attitude was not Godly, no matter what my husband did. I changed my attitude, he changed his mind and now we are very happily heading toward our 12th anniversary! Martha, I thank you, my husband thanks you, my kids thank you and God thanks you for your obedience.
Rating:
Summary: This is not a book you want you daughter to read.
Review: Be warned: This book is nothing but a fundamentalist attack on what healthy marriages should be. Martha Peace takes the women's movement back about 300 years with this archaic and literal interpretation of the Bible's view on marriage and a woman's place in that relationship. "Submit graciously" is just the beginning here, folks. This book suggests a woman blindly follow her husband wherever that may lead her -- abuse, rape, unwanted motherhood. It is literal translations from the Bible like this that makes being a Christian hard to defend.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book!
Review: Martha Peace is really down to earth! I go through this book with my Titus lady-mentor-friend and I find my eyes really opening up to what marriage means! I am single but I am preparing myself for my future mate, whoever God made me for. I urge you to get this book...there were things in it that I never thought of before...she uses bibical verses behind everything she writes and she is clearly "in the know" in what she writes. Some brothers have kidded that she needs to write an "Excellent Husband" book too! It is a book that men like also...the book does not knock men or women. It is really like holding up a mirror to yourself..be prepared!
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Summary: The way God intended marriage to be - Plainly Explained
Review: This book was a gift (from my mother) and I didn't read it right away - fully expecting it to be "preachy." Well, was I wrong. Martha explains things in a very easy to understand, factual style. You learn the principle, the verses in the Bible that state the principle, and information on how to clearly understand their meanings and what you are to do. I had misconceptions myself about what the Bible had to say about being "submissive" and "an excellent wife." If you want to know what the Bible has really has to say about your role as a wife, this is the book to read. This would be a great book to read BEFORE getting married, also.
Rating:
Summary: Ok...but....
Review: This book did give a really good biblical perspective on how we are to act as wives to our husbands, however, her own personal views I didn't agree with. Rely on the word of God & the Holy Spirit to guide you in this book.
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