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By Helen Andelin, author of Fascinating Womanhood • email: andelins@sofnet.com

Brief review: The teachings of Fascinating Womanhood center around a study of The Ideal Woman, From A Man's Point of View. The Ideal Woman has an Angelic side and a Human side. Last month I focused on the angelic side. Simply stated, a man cannot truly love a woman unless she has an inspiring character. Kindness, compassion, charity, integrity and moral courage count heavily with a man. These strong character traits awaken his worshipful feelings.

But, although these angelic qualities are essential, he wants more than an angel. He wants a woman with the human qualities which stir men's souls. Many angelic women have gone unloved throughout their lives because they have lacked the human qualities that enchant the masculine nature and awaken feelings of tenderness.

The human qualities consist of femininity, radiant happiness, radiant health and childlikeness. Femininity is a study in itself. We cover the feminine appearance, manner, nature and role. Femininity is a fascinating study, since it is such a contrast to masculinity. But it is the differences between the sexes which awaken the deepest feelings of love and tenderness.

In our study of the human qualities we also learn the importance of being radiant. A man needs and wants a woman with smiling lips and sparkling eyes. The overly serious woman lacks the charm that enchants men. The bloom of health is also essential. And, in the study of Childlikeness we learn how to express angry feelings in a charming way. You cannot have a wholesome relationship with a man if you harbor angry or resentful feelings. Hot tempers or sullen withdrawals never work. Childlike anger does! It gets feelings out in the open in a wholesome, charming way.

Assignment: Take a good look at your human side. Are you feminine in appearance and manner? Do you think and act womanly? Are you living your feminine role in the home, as a wonderful wife, devoted mother and successful homemaker? Are you radiantly happy and healthy? Do you harbor resentful feelings?

I have read your book and am an avid student of your teachings and ideas. Your ideas are like a breath of fresh air in this modern-day era. I am a stay-at-home mother and try to live the best I know how but am constantly referring back to F.W.

Indiana

Your F.W. book has helped me be a more sweetly submissive wife and a more gentle and soft spoken mother . . . It is such a boon to womankind and mankind as well. With great affection. North Carolina

In the absence of any special F.W. news to report this month, I will give you the recipe for the best pumpkin pie in the world. At least that is what I have been told. This recipe was given to my be a dear friend, Marjorie Snedaker. She may have gotten it from someone else. Most pumpkin pie crusts, which are baked along with the filling, are soggy on the bottom. This one is crisp.

Dear Mrs. Andelin,

Since I have concentrated on being very feminine, I have developed a strange problem, that of attracting the attention of other men. How should I handle this? Should I be less feminine when around other men? Or, should I be cool to the man who shows me attentions?

Dear Friend,

To be truly feminine, femininity should be a consistent part of your makeup, so it is natural and automatic. Therefore, be feminine at all times. It starts with the mind. Think like a woman, act like a woman, walk and talk like one. What do you do about the attentions of other men? When a man notices you, or seems attracted to you don't do anything that would further encourage his attentions, such as being overly friendly or outgoing. Instead, be reserved. A feminine woman handles these occasions with propriety and dignity. It is never necessary to be cool. If being reserved doesn't curb his attentions, find an excuse to walk away.

Dear Mrs. Andelin,

I know you have had experience raising a large family. Can you tell me the basics of getting children to eat right. We have a constant battle with this problem.

Dear Friend,

There are a few simple rules to solve this common problem:

1. Don't urge children to eat anything. If you do they will soon dislike food.

Instead, fix meals which they can safely choose anything on the table.

2. Don't serve dessert at meals. Serve desserts at other times. This solves critical mealtime problems. You never have to say, "Eat your vegetables so you can have dessert." This is force feeding and makes them hate wholesome foods."

3. When they don't eat, let them go hungry, no matter how long it takes. Let them skip one, two or three meals, if necessary. I once read about a fox farm where they raise foxes from birth. The little foxes were a lot like children. They sometimes lose their appetites. They solved the problem by taking away the food until the foxes became ravenously hungry.

4. Don't let them snack on junk foods between meals. It's o.k. to snack on carrots, celery, sliced apples, sprouts, or fresh homemade whole wheat bread and butter. This may mean they will not be hungry for their dinner, but this is o.k. too.

He Was Determined to Never Marry Again

Eighteen months after a divorce I began studying Fascinating Womanhood. I began to see immediately how many mistakes I had made and determined that if I ever married again I wouldn't make the same mistakes again.

At 26, with two beautiful little girls, ages 2 and 7, I've met the most wonderful man. I've been studying F.W. for the last six months and immediately put its teachings into practice. While it's only been a month since we began dating there has already been an overwhelming response from my man.

You see, my man suffered three failed marriages before we met and was determined never to make the mistake of marrying again. The most wonderful things have happened, largely because of F.W. You see, he's asked me to marry him in August. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to marriage, guided by the principles taught in F.W. Here's to a long and wonderful future with the man I love!

From a Minister's Wife

After ten years of marriage my husband, our two children and I left our home in Pennsylvania to attend a Church Seminary in New Orleans. While there, I picked up a copy of F.W. in the campus book store. It was part of suggested reading for a course I was taking called "The Ministers Wife." I had always read extensively on the subject of marriage and the home because I, like most women, wanted my marriage to be a happy one. From each book I read I usually gleaned something helpful and our marriage seemed to be successful. But I knew it wasn't what I had always dreamed a marriage should be.

During the next three years we completed our time at the Seminary and moved back to Pennsylvania. We had heard good teaching on the home from some of the best Christian teachers in the country, but our home still was not what we knew in our hearts it must be if God was going to use us in the ministry.

We went through some extremely trying times. We had three more wonderful children and worked harder and harder to keep our marriage together. But the harder we tried to make it work, the more frustrated and discouraged we became. We knew that God wanted homes to be peaceful and happy, but ours wasn't. Nothing we tried seemed to work.

Many years previously my husband had developed a drinking problem while suffering from post-Vietnam trauma. Not only had he served in Southeast Asia, but he had been wounded and spent a year in the hospital recovering. So many other couples our age were going through the same thing that we seemed quite normal. Our troubled marriage was just like most of the ones we were acquainted with.

Even though the drinking was now no longer a problem, I blamed our marriage difficulties on his background. I truly believed that I was a good wife. After all, I had stayed with him during all of those impossible years. I often thought how different our lives could have been if only he were different and if only he didn't have so many problems. I also patted myself on the back frequently for having stood by him through so much.

It was during one particularly trying time that I just happened to take from the bookshelf the F.W. book which I had purchased over three years earlier and had never read. I opened it somewhere in the middle and began reading. I don't even recall now what I read, but it really spoke to me and I kept on reading. I began to see that in many areas of my relationship with my husband I had been making serious mistakes. I came to realize that all our problems were not his fault, in fact, most of them were mine. I was devastated at first to discover how wrong I had been. But then I had to get rid of my self-righteous attitude and deal with a lot of things in myself.

I had tried so hard to be a good wife and all the while going about it all wrong. All the other books I had read told me what I needed to be and much of that information was wrong. F.W. told me how to be the wife my husband needed. Something inside me seemed to jump up and down as I read, just knowing that what I was reading was right. It was truth and I saw that it was possible to change. I saw hope for our marriage for the first time in a truly long time. As I applied the F.W. principles I began to look less often at what I wanted my husband to be and concentrated on changing myself. Good things began to happen. We both became less frustrated, we overcame discouragement and found joy in being with one another instead of the constant friction which had for so long been a way of life for us.

As the principles worked for us I began sharing them with friends and giving away copies of F.W. to everyone I knew. As we counseled with couples I would share these remarkable principles with women and saw their enthusiasm as they began to work in their lives. At the same time the principles were becoming more and more a part of me. Some of these women asked me to teach a class in F.W. I prayed about it for a long time. When another group of women asked me to teach and provided a place to hold the class, I finally applied to become a teacher.

When I publicized the first class I thought 25 students would be a nice number to begin with. Imagine how amazed I was when 65 women registered. I had realized the tremendous need for teaching because every marriage I saw was in trouble. Most women were making the same mistakes I had made. My excitement grew as the night for our first class approached. I wanted to see other lives changed for the better as ours had been.

Our classes were made up of ladies who were in seemingly good marriages, many in deeply troubled marriages, some who had never been married and even many who were already divorced. The teaching had to address every possible kind of need in women, and of course it did. F.W. is so fundamental to women's role in life that it answers the very basic question of "How can I find happiness and fulfillment as a woman?"

Women usually do all they know how to do to make their marriages work, and the women in class were no different. But once they've tried everything and still aren't loved and cherished, as they always dreamed they would be, they lose hope. When that hopelessness sets in, they can't even dream anymore. Without hope we cannot even have faith to believe God can make things better. The Bible says in Hebrews Chapter 11, verse 1, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." I believe there is a need to minister hope to women, hope that things can get better, hope that they can really be loved as they need so much to be.

I see this as one of my greatest challenges as a teacher of F.W., to help women find hope for the fulfillment of the dreams they had as little girls, that one day they would be blissfully happy in the arms of that special man. A spark of hope is all it takes to give them what they need to begin believing God will work in them to help them become what their husbands need and want them to be and indeed what God truly intended women to be. For it is only when we function in our God-given role that we can be truly happy and fulfilled.

As I applied the F.W. principles in my own life, I began to see how my attitudes about marriage and my role as a woman had been influenced and even manipulated by the Feminist Movement and what was taking place in our society. I became aware of how much of my thinking had been influenced by television and advertising and books which were full of ideas, ways and principles which were contrary to God's principles for me as a woman and wife. I want my life to be happy and successful and I believe the only way for that to become a reality is to live my life by His principles because he is the one who created woman and certainly knows best what will cause her to be fulfilled.

It takes time for God to write His laws in our hearts but during eight weeks of F.W. classes I help women see the need for change, recognize how their lives have been molded by Feminist teachings and their deceptive search for fulfillment. Then they can have hope for improvement in their lives and marriages and God has their whole lifetime to continue the process of change. Each step of the way, as we become more and more what He desires us to be, we become happier and more fulfilled as we get closer to His ideal.

And the best part is that along the way our husbands are happier and we find ourselves being treated like queens. We are no longer a hinderance to our men becoming what God intended them to be.

The F.W. principles have been a real key to happiness in my own marriage and I desire to do all I can to offer them to other.

I have the most wonderful husband in the world and I am truly grateful to F.W. for finally showing me how to be the wife he needs me to be. I was so wrong for so many years and so miserable with myself and everyone around me that I can't imaging ever going back to that after knowing the F.W. way. Perhaps I can show my gratitude and enthusiasm by helping others to learn about F.W.

Pennsylvania

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