The Sexes: The New Housewife Blues

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American housewives today, including those who may sneer at her preachings as silly. Some of those problems are as old as the Fall—problems of loneliness and dissatisfaction. Others spring from the new writ that women should find work and fulfillment outside the traditional confines of the home. Marabel Morgan, by contrast, quotes St. Paul's declaration (Ephesians 6:21): "Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord." Others may have offered more elegantly reasoned defenses of American family life—as does Arlene Rossen Cardozo in her new book, Woman at Home; still others may be attempting more organized measures to help the housewife—as has Jinx Melia with her Martha Movement. But the huge success of Marabel Morgan's books (and the hostility of her critics) makes her a remarkable phenomenon of the mid-'70s.

Most of the Morgan message is standard to all the pop self-help books that publishers have been churning out ever since Dale Carnegie and Norman Vincent Peale reaped their first millions: Think positively and keep smiling, or as Marabel puts it, "A merry heart helps melt away the troubles." Does the housewife lack goals? "Write out your philosophy of life as a woman." Is it hard to get organized? Make a list of what to do today. "A total woman sets aside time to plan carefully." Also brush the teeth frequently, and use dental floss. "Be touchable and kissable." Marabel's books contain humane and practical advice on caring for children, but they also include characters like Harriet Habit and Phoebe Phobia and phrases like "putting sizzle back into your marriage" and "plugging into God as the power source." True to the genre, she attributes her entire system to God's wishes. God wants the American housewife—or "gal," as Marabel commonly refers to her—to be happy and well scrubbed.

Along with platitudes, Marabel preaches a message of uplift and liberation that might be expected to satisfy (but does not) even her fiercest critics. "Poise and self-confidence are available to any woman," she writes. "Discover who you really are and where you are going. Develop your own convictions. Have the courage to live by your standards. Enjoy your unique spot in the world." Right on, Marabel!

But what should the American woman do with her new confidence and convictions? Marabel's answer, which her critics regard as deceptive and manipulative, combines the exhortations of the fundamentalist prayer meeting with the theatrical techniques of the Kama Sutra. Says she: "A Total Woman caters to her man's special quirks, whether it be in salads, sex or sports." For example: "Tonight, after the children are in bed, place a lighted candle on the floor and seduce him under the dining room table." A Total Woman might also try proposing sex in the hammock—even if there isn't any hammock. Marabel warns: "He may say, 'We don't have a hammock.' " But the Total Woman has an answer: "Oh, darling, I forgot!"

The most celebrated of Marabel's specialties is the suggestion of erotic costumes in which to welcome the husband home from work. "Take your bubble bath shortly before he comes home. Thrill him at your front door in your costume. A frilly new nighty and heels will