“Let him know he’s your hero:” The Sexualisation of Marriage in Marabel Morgan’s The Total Woman (1973)

This thesis argues that Marabel Morgan’s The Total Woman is a significant cultural artifact, representative of a shift toward a more liberal sexual ethic within Christian marriage. The purpose of centring this study on Morgan’s work is two-fold. Firstly, focusing on a singular text lends itself to closer analysis, allowing for a fuller understanding of Morgan’s advice, the change it inspired and the cultural significance of The Total Woman. Secondly, by employing Morgan’s work as a cultural lens, larger movements of the period and The Total Woman’s place within them can be considered. In taking this approach, a longer time period is covered, from the 1950s self-help works that preceded Morgan’s, to the rise of the New Christian Right in the 1970s and 1980s. From this, Morgan’s advice as representative of broader cultural changes is considered. In taking this approach, it is revealed that by commanding wives to engage in playful sex within marriage, Morgan sparked a shift in the self-help genre, with other born-again women following her example by publishing sex and marriage guides. Yet, this phenomenon was underpinned by a commitment to traditional values, with sexual experimentation encouraged to preserve the marital institution from extramarital affairs in light of the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Beyond this, Morgan’s adherence to strict gender roles and ‘family values’ provides an early example of principles that would come to define the New Christian Right. Overall, this study provides a more complex narrative of evangelical self-help literature, sex roles and conservatism, with The Total Woman at the heart of this new understanding