The Total Woman
Book by Marabel MorganWikipedia
12
MENTIONS
7
EPISODES
7
PODCASTS
Search complete. 12 mentions across 7 episodes found for "The Total Woman".
Oct 9, 2026
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
And Elizabeth Elliot, of course, if you're in evangelical spaces, you know, you can't write a book on Christian womanhood without at least taking another look at Elizabeth Elliot.
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
I was also looking at Maribel Morgan, author of the book, The Total Woman and How to Be Silly, Frilly, Feminine and Submit to Your Husband.
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
And that book sold more than 10 million copies in the 70s, right? So I went with kind of the heavy hitters.
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
And what I saw is all of these women were kept pointing back to a 19th century figure, Hannah Whittlesmith, a holiness preacher, an evangelical holiness preacher.
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
Absolutely.
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
You can kind of draw a connection between bestselling books written in the 1960s and 70s, like Mormon Helen Andelin's Fascinating Womanhood that promoted this view of femininity and particularly to Mormon women, but more broadly to conservative women, to Maribel Morgan's book, The Total Woman in the 1970s.
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
That book was the best-selling nonfiction book in the country in 1974, sold more than 10 million copies.
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
These are the books that helped shape this massive Christian publishing industry so that today, you know, you walk into a Christian bookstore, you pick up a book with pink flowers and Christian words on the cover.
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
Um, Elisabeth Elliot, very big name for evangelical women, right? One of the, um, key figures in evangelical purity culture, um, passion and purity, um, but so much more could be said about her.
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
And Merrill Mae Morgan, author of The Total Woman, a book on how to be a good Christian wife, um, that was the bestselling nonfiction book in the country in 1974.
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
Sold more than 10 million copies, right? So I had these big names.
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
Um, so I started with that, and then I kind of traced back, and then traced forward through that.
Sarah Stewart HollandHOST
Wow.
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
And, and that's where, and, and Hannah Smith became the first chapter in Live, Laugh, Love, because it wasn't just, um, Kathryn Marshall who was looking back to her.
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
Maribel Morgan in The Total Woman also cites Hannah Whitall Smith.
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
Elisabeth Elliot also cites Hannah Whitall Smith, and it comes from a family steeped in her teaching, her theology.
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
And then there's another chapter in this story, which is a woman by the name of Maribel Morgan takes Helen Andelin's work, actually takes a class taught by an instructor trained to teach the secret of fascinating womanhood.
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
And she publishes her own book, The Total Woman, which some people may have heard of before.
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
And that's a book that goes on to sell 10 million copies and is hugely influential in American evangelical spaces and then also more broadly.
Doug HenwoodHOST
I'm old enough to remember Maribel Morgan and The Total Woman.
Doug HenwoodHOST
It was a bit of a joke to most secular people, but it's obviously not a joke to a lot of people.
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
Exactly.
7 MINS LATER
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
Hyper-femininity, right? So long hair, ideally, blonde hair, ideally.
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
Skirts, dresses, bare legs, just so sexuality and femininity.
Laura Di PanfiloHOST
Whoo.
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
It just keeps popping up, right? And those networks that they built out, so that when Marabel Morgan, who writes this anti-feminist tract, The Total Woman, that some, um, listeners may have heard of, uh, to sell a kind of frilly hyperfemininity and that's linked with submission and promising women that they'll have great sex lives and h- you know, all, all the, all the good things, um, if they follow these rules.
Laura Di PanfiloHOST
Mm-hmm.
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
Right? She was converted into evangelicalism through Campus Crusade.
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
And then there's another chapter in this story, which is a woman by the name of Maribel Morgan takes Helen Andelin's work, actually takes a class taught by an instructor trained to teach the secret of fascinating womanhood.
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
And she publishes her own book, The Total Woman, which some people may have heard of before.
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
And that's a book that goes on to sell 10 million copies and is hugely influential in American evangelical spaces and then also more broadly.
Doug HenwoodHOST
I'm old enough to remember Maribel Morgan and The Total Woman.
Doug HenwoodHOST
It was a bit of a joke to most secular people, but it's obviously not a joke to a lot of people.
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
Exactly.
7 MINS LATER
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
Hyper-femininity, right? So long hair, ideally, blonde hair, ideally.
Kristin Kobes Du MezGUEST
Skirts, dresses, bare legs, just so sexuality and femininity.
Caitlin BeattyHOST
right.
Caitlin BeattyHOST
So before we get to Dower, I wanted to, I wanted each of us to take the total womanhood test to see how we score, to see if we are in fact a total woman.
Roxy StoneHOST
Total Womanhood being the crazy popular book by Maribel Morgan, the one who said that you should greet your husband wearing only saran wrap.
Roxy StoneHOST
Who remembers this? Yes.