Your posting above could have been written about me. All the negative things you write of happen in my relationship. It's gone down the tubes and I no longer care if it survives.

I will carry the positive thoughts you write of above into the rest of my life, and if a relationship happenes, I'll have enough respect for myself not to allow this to happen again.

I found the picture of the woman singing and dancing as she did the housework deeply alarming. Sorry, but housework is deadly boring, and no book in the world could ever get me to do more than the bare minimum. My children are extremely filthy, and cleaning up after them enough to keep the house just about sanitary uses up all the enthusiasm for housework I have (which wasn't much to start with). And all that stuff about being on a pedestal again! What is this pedestal obsession Taken in Hnad people seem to have? why would anyone want to be on one? It's draughty and lonely up there. Taken in Hand people read way too many self-help manuals, it seems to me. Forget about surrendered wives and men are from pluto women are from goofy etc, read some REAL books for a change why don't you. I mean books that make you look outward rather than inward, current affairs, history, biography, travel, who dunnits, science fiction, anything, stop all this navel-gazing. If you want a good laugh read the new Janet Evanovich 'Ten Big Ones' it's utter bliss!

I like housework and I don't like people telling me what books I ought to read.

J

As I was writing that subject line I could hear my hubby CD laughing out loud in my head! Domestic Goddess I am not and I tend to agree with Louise, it's about as much as I can do to keep my very creative two year old from single handedly destoying my house! However, I like the idea of dancing and singing as I do housework though it may not be very realistic. Ah well, to each her own, maybe in my next life. Thanks for the book recommendation, Charlotte. Perhaps I will learn something. I'm always on the lookout!

If you are having such a hard time with the kids, maybe you should look at the Andelins' book about child raising. It's awesome! I can't remember the name of it but it's probably on the fascinating womanhood website. By the way, the Fascinating Womanhood and Fascinating Girl (for singles) books for women and the "Man of Steel and Velvet" by Mr. Andelin are similarly awesome. Ladies, it's not only the women who need to change. My husband said, when he read Man of Steel and Velvet and saw how far short he fell from what he could be, he cried.

It was my mother that first told me of Fascinating Womanhood book, after which I took to the internet and searched it out. Upon finding it I called my parents and spoke to my mother of my find therein and through the grace of my parents was given the book. I find it insightful to me that those inner wisperings of the spirit to that of my own soul are also addressed in the very first chapter or two of this book. That this is the case by me I find to be another of heaven's reassurances that if I surrender my will to my maker in the spirit of sweet submission that all those righteous desires and longings of my heart will come into fruitation.

Well I wasn't planning on bearing my heart herein but there you have it. I do want to say I have nothing but very high regard for the author of this book and feel she was thus inspired and guided by heaven's light in the writing thereof. I realize I have not applied all the principles therein and admit to looking upon many aspects of homemaking as being a chore (much in the way my eldest daughter looks upon cleaning her room then that of a happy lark flitting from branch to branch as it goes about its daily living) and therefore more of a drugery then a joy but I now it's there to be had therein with the right self adjustments.

Well the hour is late but reading through everyone's thoughts has given me both food for though and a good chuckle as well.

Thanks for mentioning your husband's reaction to the book Man of steal and velvet. Perhaps one day my hubby will choose to so read it to and be thus moved as well. One can always hope!

Well, you may be sorry for my husband, but he isn't sorry for himself. He loves me to distraction and he is always telling me how lucky he is to have me. He appears to find me highly fascinating. When I once, in the course of a row, asked him why he hadn't married a woman who was more house-proud, because, as I pointed out, there are a lot of them about, he replied "But they're not interesting. You're more interesting than they are. I realise this is probably hard for you to understand, but there do exist men who are actually more interested in a woman's personality than whether she spends all her time cleaning the house. My husband's love didn't NEED rekindling, it has never died. We do get on along better as a result of some changes we have made to our relationship, but it has nothing to do with 'Fascinating Womanhood', which is yet another book that lays all the blame for troubles in a relationship at the woman's feet. It takes two to make a bad relationship, or a good one.

These days I do make more effort with the housework, because it keeps him happy, but I still don't like it much. And my children are not filthy, they have baths nearly every day, I don't make them, but they enjoy splashing around in the water. Your suggestion that my children are to be pitied for having me as a mother is offensive in the extreme. I may not be the world's best mother (though they frequently tell me I am), but to imply that they are to be pitied for being my children is highly insulting. As for returning to this site, I generally return here every time I check my emails, which is several times a day. I am ADDICTED to this site, I probably visit it more often than anyone except the owner. And if YOU spent more time reading articles and comments on here you would know that. I wrote that comment two and a half years ago, how often do YOU visit here?

I have no intention at all of reading 'Fascinating Womanhood' since just reading the reviews made me feel nauseous. My husband does not, thank God, what me to dress like a throwback to the 1950s, or go around acting half-witted in order to boost his male ego, or any of the other bizarre things that I gather this book suggests. Look, I've done my bit of reading self-help books, I managed to get through 'Getting to I Do' 'Surrendered Wife' and even 'Men are from Mars, women are from Venus' (from which I gathered that my husband and I are from some other planet as yet undiscovered by Mr Gray). Self-help books are all alike in one respect, they suggest that if you do so-and-so, such-and-such will be the result. But it may not. That works with machines, but people are more complex.

Louise

I've read many reviews of 'Fascinating Womanhood' and excerpts from the book. All it has done is confused the hell out of me, excuse the language. Aren't women already struggling in a male-dominated world? Why would you want to be encouraged to be submissive? My parents work together, their marriage is a partnership. They take turns cooking, both clean, and both do the laundry and dishes (though my Dad is a lot faster :) ). They'll work together or take turns on pretty much every household chore. Does this make my dad less of a man? He’s still out in the garage every day working on the dragster. Their marriage has worked for about twenty years now and my mom has been anything but submissive. If she’s pissed or has a problem, she’ll confront my dad, not put on some fake face and attitude so he’ll have a more ‘pleasant evening.’

What I also don’t understand is how you can take all the blame for relationship troubles. It can’t be everything you’re doing. I mean, come on. Like your partner is some angel who never does anything wrong? Instead of totally changing who you are (like it seems to me has happened), why not just sit down and talk about it? I mean, if I had trouble with my husband (though, I’m only 14), I wouldn’t blame myself and then turn into something I’m not. There is no way I would ever let a man dominate me. If I’m getting married, it’s going to be a partnership. We’re going to help each other through life, not me break my back every day doing all the cleaning and cooking because of my gender. Just because he’s ‘the man’, doesn’t mean he deserves any more or any less than me. This whole idea of a submissive housewife just disgusts me. I don’t mean to offend anyone, but I wanted to get my opinion out there.

Kel, I agree with you about 'Fascinating Womanhood', I found the book quite absurd, but there seem to be a lot of women whose lives actually have been made happier by following the rules laid down by Mrs Andelin in this book. They actually seem to be able to behave in the manner recommended by Mrs Andelin without suffering a complete nervous breakdown (which is what would happen to me if I tried it).

I don't think who does the housework is necessarily about who is more submissive. Years ago I used to go and stay with a friend sometimes whose mother waited hand and foot on the entire family, none of the other members of the faimly, husband, son, or even my friend ever lifted a finger in the house. I was quite startled by this, but eventually I came to the conclusion that my friend's mother liked it that way, I think being totally in charge in the house made her feel powerful. There was certainly nothing about her that was the slightest bit submissive. One thinks of fearsome women like Hyacinth Bucket in 'Keeping Up Appearances' or the women in 'Last of the Summer wine' who terrorise their menfolk, ordering them to wipe their feet, putting down newspaper for them to walk on so they don't get the carpets dirty etc. These women are domestic tyrants and have the men completely in thrall. Although they are fictional characters, I am sure that they have their counterparts in real life. They would one and all scorn to behave in the manner recommended by Mrs Andelin. In my own marriage, the fact that my husband does a good deal of cooking and housework does not mean that he isn't dominant in our relationship, it is irrelevent to who is dominant.

I absolutely agree about the importance of talking over problems, and I totally disagree with blaming everything on the woman. Certainly in my own marriage, changes were needed on both sides in order to improve things, and my husband needed to make a bit of an effort to change his attitude in order for things to work. Blaming everything on the woman is one of the most distasteful aspects of 'Fascinating womanhood' and similar books.

But nevertheless the book is full of glowing testimonials from women who have tried the methods laid down by Mrs Andelin and found them to work. This is extrardinary, but apparently true. The book has been in print now for over forty years. I personally would rather be dead than have to live the way Mrs Andelin recommends, but evidently it works for some.

Louise

Thank you for your kind comments, I'm glad you've enjoyed reading stuff I've written.

I certainly expected to find 'Fascinating womanhood' nauseating and revolting when I started reading it, but I actually found much of it extremely funny. The part where she suggested the the ideal woman would be a combination of Agnes Wickfield and Dora from 'David Copperfield' practically had me rolling on the floor.

It is uneniable, though, that the book is FULL of gushing testimonials from women about how FW has changed their lives, their husbands absolutely adore them now, they buy them lots of things (there is a distinctly mercenary note to many of the women's eulogies, some provide detailed lists of all the desirable objects their husbands have bestowed on them). What can these women be like? What can their husbands be like? I ponder this question from time to time, I wonder what it would be like to be a woman who was happy to go through life behaving like that, or what it would be like to be married to a man who was gratified by such behaviour.

'Surrendered Wife' I must say appealed to me much more, once I got over my inital aversion to it and managed to finish it. I enjoy the rather self-centred message of the book, which is basically do less so your husband will do more. Unlike FW, which urges women to work a 16-hour day in service of their husbands and families , the point of 'Surrendered Wife' is to make your own life pleasanter and less stressful. I instinctively approve of this. However, my worst enemy could never accuse me of being a woman who does too much, nor my husband of being passive like the husbands described in SW. Adopting the policies suggested in SW would have been, in my own case, a recipe for disaster. I needed, in fact, to do more or less the opposite of what the book recommends in order to improve relations with my husband.

From my own explorations of self-help books of this type, the most helpful one would have been 'Getting to "I do"' by Dr. Pat Allen. The purpose of the book is to get you married, which is irrelevent in my own case, but it did say things that I found helpful to my own situation. It also has, like SW, a pleasantly self-centred approach, which naturally appeals to me. The book not only tells you that it is all right to want your own desires satisifed, but that it is positively essential, if you are a 'feminine energy' woman (which, as described in the book, I undoubtedly am). Gratifying to find that I am not a self-centred bitch but a 'feminine energy' woman.

I had a go at the personality test thing you recommended, and I think it said I was an ISPF, or something like that, at any rate it said I was 89% introverted, which doesn't surprise me in the least.

I've never entirely understood my husband's attitude towards my domestic shortcomings, I mean it's not like he didn't have plenty of time to observe what I was like before we were married. I think it was buying a house that changed him, once he became a property owner, he seemed to develop a burning interest in house-cleaning which I had not noticed before. However, there are other men who are much worse than him, my sister's ex-husband was much more of a domestic tyrant, and my best friend's boyfriend is much worse than my husband as well. Compared with them he's really quite laid-back.

Getting organised and picking up after myself is something I'm still working on too! I still have a lot of conversations with my husband that begin with him saying "How many times have I told you.....", but somehow the rancour has gone out of them. I still have some difficulty with the awkward questions he is apt to ask when he's away and rings me up,like "What sort of state is the living-room in?" and "have you had the vacumm cleaner out AT ALL since I went away?" At times like these it would be nice to be an American, so that I could invoke the Fifth Amendment.

Louise