Women Into Wives

Dalma Heyn offers the revolutionary argument that women leave their marriages not for the reasons commonly believed--boredom, or disharmony with their mate--but because of a subtle trauma that they experience soon after nuptials. Women in first and second marriages, married at twenty or forty-five, describe their unexpected, often lonely transformation from women into wives and their inability to stop, or even articulate, its occurrence. As one woman says, "Within a year of my marrying, my plans for my own life, my own needs, had disappeared." Heyn argues that the ideal of the Virtuous Wife has taught us that she is the one responsible for the quality of the relationship--that to make a marriage work, women must be sacrificing, accommodating, good. But those are qualities for sainthood, not happiness. In fact, they assure precisely the opposite--distress, resentment, and guilt in both partners. Elegantly argued and resounding with the voices of women and men, "Marriage Shock is a groundbreaking book that will change the way we think about marriage--and about divorce. Heyn's compassionate conclusion is that marriage can be saved only when we stop trying to "fix" wives so they fit into it--and instead fix marriage to embrace and nourish wives.

'Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes' reconstructs the real 1950s, through the eyes of the women who lived it. Step back in time to where our grandmothers scrubbed their doorsteps, cared for their families, lived, laughed, loved and struggled. This is their story.

Art is a hard mistress, and there is no art quite so hard as that of being a wife. So begins this entertaining and enlightening booklet of Don'ts for Wives. Discussing such categories as "How to Avoid Discord," "Financial Matters," "Food," and "Evenings at Home," Don'ts for Wives is full of advice for ways in a which a proper and loving wife should behave toward her husband. Each chapter is comprised of a list of "don'ts" that wives should follow if they wish to run a successful home and keep their husbands happy. While much of the advice is outdated, a surprising number of her recommendations are still applicable today. A delightful glimpse into turn-of-the-century British life, Don'ts for Wives is for anyone interested in etiquette, sociology, or who is just looking for a laugh. Also part of this series are Don'ts for Husbands and Don'ts for Mothers, available from Cosimo Classics.

A bestselling, groundbreaking author investigates wives who thrive, sharing their uncensored strategies for staying married. America’s high divorce rate is well known. But little attention has been paid to the flip side: couples who creatively manage to build marriages that are lasting longer than we ever thought possible. What’s the secret? To find out, bestselling journalist Iris Krasnow interviewed more than two hundred wives whose marriages have survived for fifteen to seventy years. In raw, candid, sometimes titillating stories, Krasnow’s cast of wise women give voice to the truth about marriage and the importance of maintaining a strong sense of self apart from the relationship. Some spend summers separately from their partners. Some make time for wine with the girls. One septuagenarian has a recurring date with an old flame from high school. In every case, the marriage operates on many tracks, giving both spouses license to pursue the question “Who am I apart from my marriage?” Krasnow’s goal is to give women permission to create their own marriages at any age. Marital bliss is possible, she says, if each partner is blissful apart from the other. For anyone who wants to stay married and stay sane, this is the book to read!

"This enlightening work investigates the history, incidence, and causes of a unique sexual lifestyle pursued by increasing numbers of couples. The most common terms used to describe it are 'hotwife/cuckold lifestyle.' This sexual practice, a form of sexual nonmonogamy, is distinguished from swinging and polyamory in that the husband rarely seeks sexual contact outside the marriage except for participation in group sex with his wife and other men, while the wife is permitted, and often encouraged, to pursue unrestrained sexual encounters with other men. The author includes interviews and comments from couples living the lifestyle throughout the United States and presents the stories in an attempt to determine the history of this sexual practice and evolutionary underpinnings of this uncommon and socially taboo behavior in an effort to make it more comprehensible to those engaged in the lifestyle and those who are just curious." -- page 4 of cover.

Paul's letters stand at the center of the dispute over women, the church, and the home, with each side championing passages from the Apostle. Now, in a challenging new attempt to wrestle with these thorny texts, Craig Keener delves as deeply into the world of Paul and the apostles as anyone thus far. Acknowledging that we must take the biblical text seriously, and recognizing that Paul's letters arose in a specific time and place for a specific purpose, Keener mines the historical, lexical, cultural, and exegetical details behind Paul's words about women in the home and ministry to give us one of the most insightful expositions of the key Pauline passages in years.

Dr. Dobson's suggestions for marital happiness are interesting, practical, and humorous.

A 75th anniversary e-book version of the most important and practical self-help book ever written, Alcoholics Anonymous. Here is a special deluxe edition of a book that has changed millions of lives and launched the modern recovery movement: Alcoholics Anonymous. This edition not only reproduces the original 1939 text of Alcoholics Anonymous, but as a special bonus features the complete 1941 Saturday Evening Post article “Alcoholics Anonymous” by journalist Jack Alexander, which, at the time, did as much as the book itself to introduce millions of seekers to AA’s program. Alcoholics Anonymous has touched and transformed myriad lives, and finally appears in a volume that honors its posterity and impact.

Chinese emperors guaranteed male successors by taking multiple wives, in some cases hundreds and even thousands. Women Shall Not Rule offers a fascinating history of imperial wives and concubines, especially in light of the greatest challenges to polygamous harmony—rivalry between women and their attempts to engage in politics. Besides ambitious empresses and concubines, these vivid stories of the imperial polygamous family are also populated with prolific emperors, wanton women, libertine men, cunning eunuchs, and bizarre cases of intrigue and scandal among rival wives. Keith McMahon, a leading expert on the history of gender in China, draws upon decades of research to describe the values and ideals of imperial polygamy and the ways in which it worked and did not work in real life. His rich sources are both historical and fictional, including poetic accounts and sensational stories told in pornographic detail. Displaying rare historical breadth, his lively and fascinating study will be invaluable as a comprehensive and authoritative resource for all readers interested in the domestic life of royal palaces across the world.

This enthralling work of scholarship strips away abstractions to reveal the hidden--and not always stoic--face of the "goodwives" of colonial America. In these pages we encounter the awesome burdens--and the considerable power--of a New England housewife's domestic life and witness her occasional forays into the world of men. We see her borrowing from her neighbors, loving her husband, raising--and, all too often, mourning--her children, and even attaining fame as a heroine of frontier conflicts or notoriety as a murderess. Painstakingly researched, lively with scandal and homely detail, Good Wives is history at its best.