The Pagan Roots of "Biblical Womanhood"  🔗 **Source:** [The Pagan Roots of "Biblical Womanhood"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBcCrcuegd0) [00:00:00] the role of white women in 20th century American Christianity. There's a long history that predates this. >> Oh, this is a wild story. If you're going to talk about evangelical ideals of femininity, you got to talk about Marbel Morgan. She wrote the total woman 1973. By 1974, it is the bestselling non-fiction book in the country of any genre. It goes on to sell like 10 million copies. This is massively influential and you've probably heard about it. Uh this is like the idea that you meet your husband at the door wearing nothing but saran wrap. not actually in the book, but when people suggested it to her, she said [00:00:33] that was a great idea. The idea that a woman needs to be very, very frilly and feminine and childlike and cater to her husband's every need, whether it be in sex, salads, or sports, and just be this kind of flighty floozy um woman to please her husband. Submit to him because if you give him what he wants, he will give you what you want. Okay? again, wildly successful. And we know how this works in Christian publishing and in secular publishing. If you if you write a book that sells 10 million copies, there's going to be some copycats out there, right? So, it really does set the template for evangelical femininity and books on, you know, the [00:01:14] quote unquote biblical womanhood down the road. Well, I just wanted to figure out where did this come from. She herself was involved in Campus Crusade, which is relevant in a way I won't get into here. Um, but turns out she was directly inspired by a book written a decade earlier by a Mormon woman named Helen Andolin. She wrote a book called Fascinating Womanhood that's essentially the same thing. Um, but Marbel Morgan takes that she had taken a class with um, and Rell Publishers come to her and says, "Hey, do you want to do a version of this essentially for evangelical women specifically?" And she's like, "Absolutely." [00:01:50] um you know gets permission but and says just be sure to acknowledge you know my work. Marbel Morgan does not and um so essentially the whole total woman is built on the foundations of this book written by a Mormon woman a decade earlier fascinating womanhood. Turns out that book was based almost entirely on a set of booklets published in the early 1920s by a little outfit called Psychology Press. Um, and it was not Mormon and it was not evangelical. It was a new thought publisher. This idea of femininity, you give a man what he wants, hyper femininity, childlikeness, you pout if you don't get your way, but you, you know, always give [00:02:35] him his way. All of that came out of the tradition of new thought. So, bring it back up to Morgan and the tradition she helps establish in terms of evangelical books on womanhood. Its roots go through Mormonism and um are found like the source is new thought. >> Okay. So, you're you're you're busting an an illusion here, which is I love when historians do this. The illusion, obviously I'm not the target market for this kind of material, but the illusion that I had assumed is at some point some woman put her nose in the Bible, I don't know, Proverbs 31 or some other texts, Ephesians 5, and decided based on a few [00:03:17] Bible texts, to come up with a formula for 20th century femininity that said, "Submit to your husband, submit to men, uh be sexually desirous, be a servant." uh maybe an interpretation of Adam and Eve as a helpmate kind of thing or all that and then concocted this vision of ideal Christian femininity and wrote a bunch of books about it and and conferences and all that. >> That's the illusion I had. What you've revealed though is that that whole idea came from Morgan in her 1973 book which actually came from a Mormon book which actually came from new thought. So it was really rooted in I don't know the power of positive femininity in the in [00:03:58] the early 20th century that if you if you >> this formulaic understanding that if a woman just submits and thinks the right way based on what the assumption is a man wants of a woman then you'll get the life you really want. >> Yes. And this is filled with testimonials of women who were in loveless depressing marriages who you used these tactics and then testify that it transformed their lives in their marriages and their husbands, you know, bring them flowers every day and do on them all the time and their life is wonderful. But like Smith at the beginning, a lot of the women who actually propagated this message, this formulaic positive [00:04:36] thinking view of femininity, turns out their lives weren't exactly stellar examples of this. >> Um, but it's sold a lot. >> Yeah. First of all, like these women are are not the stay-at-home moms that they are uh, you know, telling other women to to be. Obviously, they are business women. They are on the road. They're marketing their their product. Um, and but yes, once again, you know, despite all of the testimonials in the lives of real women, for some women, yeah, it did it did improve their marriages and and I think that shouldn't be discounted. Um, many women kind of wager, do you know what? Um, you know, what's their [00:05:11] alternative? Uh, Betty Fredan's uh, you know, feminism, liberal feminism, go out and get a job. Well, these women, many didn't have education or or any any job experience. How are they going to improve their lives? like the the solutions feminists offered were really not practical for many women, whereas this was something they could take control over. Change your attitude and your husband will change, your circumstances will change, right? So, there's something really attractive there. It it it kind of makes sense. But what happens when you do all these things, when you submit, when you u sacrifice your own desire, give up your [00:05:46] own will um and things don't improve, right? And that's that's the kind of tragic story. Some women really double down um more discipline and they get more and more rigid and they suffer. Some women walk away from the faith, right? The kind of deconstructing realizing this is a a false bill of goods. And um and and you know, some just just keep trying. >> What it sounds to me like, and you mentioned this elsewhere in the book, is it's just another variation of the prosperity gospel. >> Yeah. We've talked numerous episodes in the show about the sexual prosperity gospel, the purity movement, right? If you just follow these rules and you will [00:06:23] have a great marriage and wonderful sex life and all that. There's the traditional prosperity gospel. You just obey God and you get wealth and health and fame and success. And this feels a little bit like the femininity prosperity gospel where if you just follow quote unquote God's design for being a woman, then you will get the marriage, the family, the outcome of the life you want. And in every case it does when it doesn't work out, you either have to conclude that the false gospel you've been presented was actually a false gospel and you walk away from the faith or more likely >> Yeah. >> you did something wrong. [00:06:56] >> Exactly. >> You didn't believe enough. You didn't obey enough. You didn't submit enough. >> Um you mentioned this is page 142. You ask the question, what precisely was Christian about the total woman? This book from 1973. You say Morgan scattered Bible verses here and there in the book, but her solutions didn't seem particularly Christian. And one of the people who taught her book at the seminar said um it was based on God's instructions, but in the next breath she said that anyone who didn't believe in God could just eliminate that whole part of the presentation. >> Yes. >> So again, it's the formula that matters, [00:07:30] not >> Yes. >> the godly power assumed to be behind the formula. And >> yeah, >> this is prosperity gospel stuff all over the if you just >> follow the rules, the outcome is guaranteed. >> And when the outcome doesn't show up, well, it must be your fault. You didn't follow the rules enough, which is leads to all kinds of disillusionment. Hey, if you like this video, like and subscribe so that you can get more Holy Post content and others can find it as well., The Pagan Roots of "Biblical Womanhood", Holy Post Media, 01m32jrzrfs1dwf6jws45874b9.