Has anyone noticed that the math in Love & Respect for how many people the book applies to doesn’t add up?
Joanna and her family are on their way down from the Arctic today to stay at my house for a week. They’re moving to Edmonton (it’s funny to think of Edmonton as SOUTH for them, but there you go), and they’re stopping by for a few days. We’re hoping to take the kids to the zoo and to some great hikes, because her kids have been cooped up for the Arctic winter.
While she’s here, I’m going to record some podcasts talking about the way that research is commonly handled in many books. I’ve been collecting lots of examples, and one of the basic ones I’d like to use is Eggerichs’ claims in Love & Respect about who the book applies to.
Emerson Eggerichs’ claim in Love & Respect is that men primarily need respect while women primarily need love. I’ve written at length about the problems with Love & Respect and why Love & Respect scored 0/48 on our rubric of healthy sexuality teaching, but today I just want to look at his claims at face value.
He bases his thesis for Love & Respect on two things:
- A single Bible verse telling wives to respect their husbands and husbands to love their wives
- A survey Shaunti Feldhahn did of just 400 men asking them if they would rather be “alone and unloved” or “inadequate and disrespected”
There is much to say about the problems with Shaunti Feldhahn’s survey question and methods, but let’s give her the benefit of the doubt for a minute and assume she’s right that if a man says he prefers to be alone and unloved that this means he wants respect over love.
How many men chose this?
%
Okay, so already we don’t have 100% of men. But now, how many women say that they prefer love–like how many women say they would prefer to feel “inadequate and disrespected”?
Well, we don’t actually know because Shaunti Feldhahn never asked women. The whole “scientific” basis for his claim is an inadequate and confusing survey question given to just 400 men, and then assuming there’s a gender difference without checking.
You can’t just ask men and assume that women would answer in the opposite way, but that’s what they did.
Again, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt.
Let’s assume that the same number of women want love as men want respect.
Do you remember back in grade school when you have to find the chance of something happening? You multiply the chance of one thing happening by the chance of another thing happening.
Until we figure out the chance of ONE PARTICULAR HUSBAND wanting respect being married to ONE PARTICULAR WIFE that wants love, 74% sounds pretty high. But let’s do the math and see what happens:
74% x 74% = 54.76%
So in our very best case scenario, this book only applies to 55% of couples.
But what if we ask women the same question that Shaunti Feldhahn asked men?
Even though Shaunti didn’t ask women, other researchers have (even acknowledging it’s a badly phrased question; they just wanted to see if there’s a gender difference). A Psychology Today article reports on a poll of 1200 women (so three times as many men as Shaunti Feldhahn asked), and in that study, how many women preferred respect?
%
So virtually the same. In fact, when they asked Harvard grads (of which Shaunti is one), 75% of women chose respect (even more than the men).
Okay, so a little bit more math.
If 65% of women want respect, then how many want love? 35%.
So let’s do the math again.
74% x 35% = 25.9%
This book only applies to 1/4 of couples, based on the survey question that Eggerichs used to support his thesis.
Even in the very, very best case scenario (which does not exist in reality), it only applies to just over half.
And Eggerichs should have been able to do the math to see that it only applied to just over half, even using the assumptions that he was using.
The math for Love & Respect doesn’t add up.
There are so many other things wrong with the book, and I’ve detailed them at length elsewhere. But I want to encourage us to get used to dissecting the underlying assumptions in the books that we read, rather than taking them at face value.
Emerson Eggerichs and Shaunti Feldhahn:
- Based a whole theology of marriage on something that only applied to 1/2 of couples AT BEST
- Did so using a bad survey question while only asking 400 men
- Assumed a gender difference without ever asking women
And somehow this passed muster and the book became the #1 used marriage study in North American churches.
And no one pointed out–your basic assumptions are really faulty.
We have to stop letting things like this slide. They’ve done too much damage. And can we please, please learn some math?
What if you’re NOT the problem with your sex life?
What if the messages that you’ve been taught have messed things up–and what if there’s a way to escape these toxic teachings?
It’s time for a Great Sex Rescue.
What do you think? Why did his math go unchallenged for so long? Let’s talk in the comments!
Sheila Wray Gregoire
Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
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Why did it go unchallenged for so long? Probably because it fed into the popular belief that women are emotional, temperamental, illogical, unstable while men are calm, methodical, logical and always keep their emotions in check.
It’s a belief that runs deep throughout society. To take just one example, research has shown that women are much less likely to be taken seriously if they go to their doctor than are men. This is even the case when they are describing symptoms that point to a potentially life-threatening condition. A man presenting a particular set of symptoms would be sent for tests for heart disease, cancer etc, while a woman presenting an identical set of symptoms is more likely to be offered anti-depressants!
We feel comfortable when we hear about ‘research’ which backs up our own beliefs and feel threatened when those beliefs are challenged. So when society is so convinced that women are fluffy, emotional little dears who don’t want to worry their pretty little heads about being respected and that men are strong, wise, powerful beings who are far above trivialities like emotions, it is going to leap on any ‘research’ that backs that up.
Yes, I think you’re right! it still blows my mind though that they never asked women and thought that was okay!
Really, why would you need to? Obviously if men wear blue glasses then women MUST wear pink ones, right?
Talking of glasses…last month I had to get a new pair. I was direct to the ‘ladies frames’ section to choose the ones I wanted. After 45 minutes, I was getting desperate – they only had half a dozen pairs in neutral colours, 3 were too small to fit on my face, 2 were uncomfortable to wear and the 6th were too narrow-lensed for varifocals.
Then the sales guy says ‘if you’re struggling to find a pair that suit you, why don’t you try the men’s section?’
I’d assumed that ‘men’s frames’ would be a different size & shape – maybe too big for the average-sized woman’s face. Turns out they are ‘men’s’ frames because they are predominantly brown, black, navy or metallic colours. Instead of the pink, purple, white, diamente-set and glitter-covered ones on the women’s side! Some of the ‘men’s’ frames were EXACTLY the same size and shape as the women’s, just in ‘go-with-anything’ colours instead of pastels or neon pink!
So when even secular companies assume that all women want pink glittery glasses, is it any wonder that the church is still sticking us in a ‘pink and fluffy’ category?!
Yup, confirmation bias is powerful.
It can also create a self-perpetuating cycle. Let’s say that a man really craves emotional connection and affection, but is surrounded by folks who have read and bought into Love and Respect. Suddenly, even if he has those feelings, he may feel that it isn’t “manly” to admit them. Let’s also say that he doesn’t initially mind his wife speaking her mind. Well, then there are glances and comments and maybe someone muttering “beta”, and before you know it, he’s suddenly feeling self-conscious and wondering if people see him as not worthy of respect.
So, even if those aren’t his actual initial feelings, he won’t speak up to challenge the narrative.
I have to agree with this. After having my second child. I felt I could not breathe. I went to the ER 3 days postpartum and was sent home being told I was having panic attacks bc my baby was in the NICU. After multiple trips to the ER over the next 6 months, and being labeled a drug seeker for pain and and anxiety, I was finally seen by a woman physician who for the first time didn’t dismiss me. I was in full blown heart failure and diagnosed with postpartum cardiomyopathy. I was 23. She said untreated I wouldn’t have lived another month.
Oh my gosh! That’s terrible. I’m so glad you saw her!
My bully accused me of being flirty with some boy at church and I was shocked! I had no idea what it was and how I was accidentally doing it…..at the meal time. She said it was something that I’d done with my eyes(?). So I tried very hard to focus on my eyes! ( Amusing now because I was 7-8? And had no idea what it was…. and I can bet millions neither did the boy. I don’t think I ever even romantically liked that boy!)
It was so taxing and annoying, for that brief time, trying not to “accidentally flirt” with my eyes. When she then said I was being disrespectful to her(or something?) I couldn’t understand what it meant. She told me what she thought it meant….but my brain just didn’t even try to comprehend it! That was when I took one look at the word respectful and felt dizzy!
I know now…it’s treating everyone with basic human worth and recognizing that God has a few special posts in life. But admiration is earned, not granted. And I owe it to nobody!
His math went unchallenged because it supported a systemic belief system they were trying to re-ingrain after the rise of feminism in the 60’s-80’s.
Inadequate and disrespected or alone and unloved? Those spund like synonyms. Besides it is those feelings of being unloved or inadequate that push men and women to try and fill that void. Some find healthy relationships others find destructive or parasocial relationships others harden their hearts still others become desperate or confused romantics and some turn to porn. What a weird question.
It totally is! It’s also something called a “double barrelled” question, which you’re not supposed to use in surveys, because you don’t know if people are referring to “alone” or “unloved” if they choose that, or to “inadequate” and “disrespected” if they choose that. If you note, inadequate and disrespected are not synonyms at all, so how can you assume they’re reacting to the disrespected?
It’s just a very bad survey question, and Feldhahn admitted in her book For Women Only that her pilot study flagged it and her survey designer flagged it as problematic and not measuring what she thought she was measuring–and she included it anyway.
I find it odd as well that only 400 people were surveyed and yet they treat the result as stastically valid.
That does not seem right.
Not just “only 400 people” but only 400 men, specifically. The whole thing suggests that whatever the point of the survey was, it was not primarily to get valid data.
That is true. Still the question comes off as just being two different ways to ask the same thing.
Yep!
It reads like one of those survey questions that is designed to produce the answer the ‘researcher’ wants. MOST people, regardless of gender, would probably rather be alone, even if it meant being unloved, than with someone who made them feel inadequate and disrespected. (It’s a bit like asking someone if they’d rather be single and lonely or married but in an abusive relationship and then using the majority vote for ‘single’ to prove people don’t want to get married any more)
If you’re clever (and unethical) with the survey questions, you can prove anything you want. A few years back, we had a wind farm built near us. Beforehand, both the people trying to get it built and the people campaigning against it did a survey. The ‘pro’ survey found that the majority of locals were in favour, the ‘anti’ survey found that the majority were against. But NEITHER survey actually asked ‘are you in favour of the wind farm being built’. The ‘pro’ one asked questions like ‘do you care about the environment?’ (most people said yes) and argued the survey proved people wanted the wind farm because ‘anyone who cares about the environment must be in favour of wind farms’. And the anti one asked questions like ‘do you value the peace and quiet of the local area?’ (most people said yes) and argued their survey proved the majority were AGAINST the wind farm because of the noise it created!
It’s why every time someone tells me ‘a survey has shown that…’ I ask to see the actual survey questions!
My problem with the question is that it’s the equivalent of asking “would you rather starve or eat poison?”
In my experience, all healthy relationships are based on mutual respect. You’re better off single (which isn’t “alone” and “unloved” – you have God, family, and friends) than in a toxic relationship, so… if the guy/gal doesn’t respect you, bail. The message isn’t that “men need respect” so much as contempt is poisonous to a relationship.
The problem is that Eggrichs thinks that women can be loved and disrespected. No, the entire reason people answered the survey question the way they did is that you can’t be in a relationship with someone who disrespects you.
Yep! And Shaunti’s survey expert told her that, and her pilot study told her that, and she STILL said the question was insightful.
“The problem is that Eggrichs thinks that women can be loved and disrespected.”
THIS. This was basically what I concluded after my hubby and I went to a L&R seminar years ago.
Thing was, I thought I was a weird, “unbiblical” woman, not that his whole premise was wrong.
I remember being constantly taught to go back and double check my math. Seems a great idea in these cases, too.
CMT- “Thing was, I thought I was a weird, “unbiblical” woman, not that his whole premise was wrong.”
Exactly. I often felt the same way, and trusted our pastor (or authors) to be truthful. I had been inoculated with doubt in myself because pick one:
-we are to trust those who have studied it more,
-God calls teachers to account so why wouldn’t they do a good job of leading their sheep,
-others have been a Christian longer than me so are closer to God and discern His teachings better,
-I must have a rebelliousness that lacks the humility God desires,
-I have a critical spirit.
When I had doubt, I must not have had a “right heart” before God since I “would assume the worst” in others or that I wanted to cause trouble by casting doubt on people who were simply trying to do God’s work and that was evil.
Even now after seeing the crud that was thrown at me, I still doubt myself anytime I discern something as off no matter how right I am. Their voices linger like satan whispering in my ear to distract me off the right track. It may take a lifetime to unlearn this junk and retrain myself to discern the Spirit.
Wow, your bullet points are dead on. You’ve just described my entire life as a Christian.
I can relate to this. I spent years assuming that these men were given large platforms because God had blessed them and that they had been thoroughly vetted as someone fit to hold that position. How wrong I was! I am now consciously avoiding the big name celebrities and listening to the smaller voices who have more direct interaction with their audiences.
I feel you. There are so many ways women are conditioned in broader society to ignore their instincts, and the church just tends to exacerbate that, imo.
I hear you, Nessie. I find myself asking those same questions too quite a bit.
Exactly – it isn’t EITHER love OR respect. Real love between adults includes respect.
I liked this what JabeEyre said very much:
My problem with the question is that it’s the equivalent of asking “would you rather starve or eat poison?”
It was almost funny.
So, the men in this survey were not asked what they needed most, love or respect. They were asked how they preferred to die. They were presented with two bad alternatives and asked to choose between them.
And both alternatives leave you dead.
Not to mention that it does nothing to fill the void.
Plenty of women are disrespected even though they’re highly adequate, so those two are not really synonymous for half the population.
I take “alone” to mean unmarried, but even those who are single would likely have the love of family and friends, and perhaps even of coworkers. So again, not as synonymous as they sound at first blush.
That is fair. Still it is a terrible question.
Amen – check your Math LOL
Okay, I just don’t get it. I’m not sure if people generally don’t think in terms of how the math works, or they don’t think to apply that logic to something when they hear “the Bible says…” I suspect it’s a bit of both.
His book went unchallenged for a few reasons…first, it supports the patriarchal viewpoint that was already endorsed by Evangelicals. Second, few people look up the references. Third, most Christians do not know how to interpret scripture, so are quite comfortable taking a single verse & stretching it like Silly Putty. “The Prayer of Jabez” is another book that does this.
From the article : “Why did his math go unchallenged for so long? ”
All the things you said.
That Proof Text business. I tell ya.
They have a Bible verse that says husbands are to love and wives are to respect. That’s all the math they need. Because whatever math [they claim] the Bible has, it trumps all other math.
“We’ve got a Bible verse for that. We don’t need the devil’s math confusing us!”
A big problem I see in modern Christianity is proof-texting. The entire premise of L&R is based on a proof-text. Step 1 – man creates an idea. Step 2 – man finds a small Bible passage (a verse) that supports his idea. Step 3 – man declares that his idea is from God. This method can be used to make dogmatic just about any idea someone comes up with, however that doesn’t actually mean that the idea is from God. The chapter and verse markings in the Bible are not original, they were added much, much later. We need to be careful about how we handle the Bible and read it for what it is rather than taking small out-of-context bits of it to support our humanly-conceived agendas.
An excellent point. I have brought up that chapter and verse is a modern invention, it was added beginning in the 16th century.
Using verses out of context is as old as the Bible. In fact, this is a tactic that Satan tried to use to tempt Jesus. Jesus was able to rebuff him because he knew ALL of Scripture.
That is an example that we should follow.
When you feel alone and unloved, you just broke up with your girlfriend. You can still feel like you have a lot of things going for you. It is time to get back to a hobby.
When you feel inadequate, nothing is going right. That’s when you end up on the couch with Netflix for weeks. I can’t believe 24% chose this answer.
I can’t believe she’s a Harvard grad and she came up with such a horrible survey! And then went on to ignore the advice she received about it, to boot. How very arrogant.
It really does seem like she was only trying to create a study to prove her point so she could write the book and claim research. Just recently someone from my church wanted to start a book study on Shaunti’s book because “it’s based in research”! I was so taken aback by the comment, I didn’t know what to say. Plus there was a whole group of women involved, so I wanted to be very careful with my words. But then the book wasn’t chosen in the end, so I never had to bring it up. But it just floors me that that’s how people view her book!
I think if I find myself in that situation again, I will ask if the book is based in GOOD research. That should lead to an interesting discussion.
EE loves taking research from others in his book, doesn’t he? Grab a bad research here, then twist another one there. It’s almost like he’s trying to ruin women’s lives. Oh, wait…
Yes, he uses Gottman’s research, but then ignores Gottman’s opinions, and says that it proves the opposite of what Gottman says it proves (for instance, Gottman says that people go into gendered stereotypes during conflict, and this isn’t a good thing. Eggerichs says that gendered stereotypes are instead designed by God and should be the norm.)
King David was described as a pretty boy who was a poet philosopher father husband warrior and leader. Honestly, even the most stereotypical manly man is more than a stereotype.
Kenshiro- The dude can blow people apart with Hokuto Shinken. The first example on screen we see him using it though he uses it to help a mute little girl. He is also the image of manly tears.
Macho Man- Dude literally has macho in the name. However both in and out of character he tried to be a friendly guy and he in and out of character tried hard to fix his failing marriage.
Solid Snake- The man is at once one of the greatest fictional soldiers ever while also being a man who despite saving the world believes that he is not a hero. His best friend is named after an anime convention and he listens to jpop to calm his nerves.
People are multifaceted.
He used research dating back to the 1960’s to prove his point which was very sexist and misogynistic.
As a graduate student, I am learning when it comes to doing research for an assignment, we are to consult current publications (within 5-10 years).
I completely agree that Emerson Eggerich’s data is wrong. However, I think your math here is just as meaningless. If you are going to assume 75% of women prefer love, it doesn’t necessarily mean those 75% would be randomly distributed among the men who prefer respect. Up to 75% of marriages could fit Emmersons model if women who prefer love tended to marry men who prefer respect. I love the rest of your work, but this particular math sounds about as meaningless as eggerich’s type of science.
Do you have any reason to believe they WOULDN’T be randomly distributed?
But again, 75% of women do NOT prefer love. They prefer respect. I was merely giving the 74% to them as the benefit of the doubt; when asked that same question, women chose the same option as men in almost the same numbers. Even if every woman who chose love married a man who chose respect (highly unlikely), then, the most Eggerichs could get is 35%.
Can I ask, Shelia, do you think it’s even possible to fully separate the two (love and respect) when talking about healthy marriage?
I mean I guess you could be respected (admired, honoured and unviolated) but not ‘loved’ within marraige (although that would make it an unhealthy one), but can you Really be Loved yet un-respected?? 🤔
Personally I see healthy marital “love” as always including respect (from a Christian perspective)… Love without respect seems worldly (a feeling alone) to me and therefore not good.
Yes, I agree! I don’t think you can separate them either!
How can you even separate love and respect in a marriage?
Also just wondering what your math background is and if you’ve studied statistics.
I am still trying to answer that survey question for myself! I mean, who wants to BE inadequate? If you WERE inadequate then, yeah, you wouldn’t be respected. How many guys were answering based on not wanting to be inadequate more than they were answering based on wanting respect. Also, being alone and unloved– you could technically be “alone” and yet still loved. Also, choosing being alone and
unloved, does that mean the person would be adequate and respected?
I hate that survey question! It is seriously the worst. I think people ate up the “love and respect” book because it seemed to promise all the answers, left every one confused, which made everyone feel inadequate, but then pretended to get it. Like the dwarves in Lewis’s “Last Battle” — anyway, I like seeing the math!
That’s exactly what my son-in-law says. His take is that three of the words refer to how other people see you–alone, unloved, disrespected–but inadequate refers to how you see yourself. And while you can get over how other people see you, you can’t really get over how you see yourself. So that’s what he’d be reacting to if he chose “alone and unloved.”
It’s just such a stunningly bad survey question, and even Shaunti’s survey expert told her that and her pilot study told her that. But she still included it, and so did Eggerichs. In fact, Eggerichs, in his footnote, makes a big deal about how awesome Shaunti’s survey expert is, without mentioning that that very expert said this question wasn’t a good one.
Having raised 2 sons and a daughter, I believe that women and men need and desire both love and respect.
I am SO GLAD you are using your platform to discuss this! Those of us who felt our heads exploding when we read Eggerichs and Feldhahn, but had no platform, GAH! I just had to release it to avoid getting an ulcer. Even my husband looked at me like I was crazy (he never read the books, just listened to my rants. He’s since read TGSR and now he completely gets it and it just as mad as I am). Eggerichs and Feldhahn are frauds, nothing less. It is fraudulent to make money spreading utter lies. Eggerichs takes it even further by falsely stating that the research of the highly respected Gottman Institute supports his book. ANYONE who’s read even ONE book by Gottman knows it’s not true! But Eggerichs knew that the vast majority of Evangelical pastors and Evangelical church goers wouldn’t check on his sources. I recently heard a term– Evangelical Insta-trust. And I think it’s definitely a thing. If a book is written by a fellow Evangelical and overall reinforces the culture, all Evangelicals will trust that book and author. Even if they have absolutely nothing to back up their opinions.
“Evangelical Insta-trust”
Not heard that before but it sure makes sense to term it!
I was chastised by pastor at previous church for not trusting everyone in “authority” (read: him) completely with no questions asked, and told that I have a “critical spirit,” needed to “get right with God,” and “seek professional help to deal with [my] trust issues,” etc. All of those can absolutely be valid things but in these (repeated) cases in which the pastor was doing wrong, it was said to anyone that pointed out areas of improvement (his sins or his lack of awareness).
Funny, maybe if the lead pastor shepherded his flock in a godly way, many of us would have been more “right with God.” Ah, gaslighting.
Sadly, the exploitation of others by those in “authority” has led me to question even the validity of the bible (as it is translated in English, anyway.) If I wasn’t such a bad learner of bookish things, I’d be studying Greek, etc.
As you say, Sheila, it’s a terribly phrased question and only seems to prove how NOT to conduct a servey.
My overwhelming thought is how anyone can read “inadequate and disrespected” and essentially equate it to “love at the expense of respect” (oxymoron?)?!
I see it more like: ‘personally lacking and in a Disfunctional relationship (plus, Dis-respect is an active ‘doing’ not even simply a ‘lack of’)…
How that equates to concluding that respondents were choosing between “love and respect” I simply can’t understand!
I also notice that the ‘servey’ question was phrased in the negative with no positively phrashed question for comparison.
For that matter, how does “alone and unloved” in ANY way reflect being “respected”? Respected by whom, they’d be alone?!
I now wonder what their statistics might say if they asked (the same 400) men the flip questions:
‘married and loved’ (for “alone and unloved”) OR ‘adequate and respected’ (for “inadequate and disrespected”). 🤔
*I just remembered you said you’d written about the problems with this servey, guess I should have read that before commenting, I’ll go read it now. 👍🏼 sorry.
I have read snippets from Love & Respect and t couldn’t believe what it was saying. I am actually interested in reading the whole thing just to see how bad it really is. Of course, I have no intention of PAYING for it because I don’t want to give a dime to Eggerichs. (I have a hold on it at my local library.) I’m glad I didn’t read any of those bad teachings books previously but after reading “The Great Sex Rescue,” it’s kind of fun/interesting to read the books that Sheila listed as toxic.
Anyone else read them just to see how bad they really are?
Side note: I remember seeing some interview with Eggerichs where he said something about how he would put wet towels on the bed and his wife didn’t like it. She asked him to stop and instead of stopping… he kept doing it and told his sons to start doing it. His wife eventually STOPPED telling him to not do it. OMG! THIS IS THE GUY WITH THE BEST SELLING CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE BOOK?!?! This is the love/marriage guru?? This is the guy who touted how you’re supposed to LOVE your wife? What? Was she being “disrespectful” by asking him to not put wet towels on the bed? How does ignoring your spouses simple requests LOVING?? The guy quite frankly makes me sick.
It completely makes me sick. I’m using the wet towel episode as an object lesson in a talk I’m giving tomorrow in Denver!
I have been trying to find the video of Eggerichs telling the wet towel story and I can’t find it anywhere. Do you happen have a link to it? Can’t wait to hear about your talk in Denver! Come down to Houston!
Could you please link where you have gone in detail about the problems with this book? I have literally highlighted so many issues I have with that book and I thought I was the only one!
You can start here!
I’d love to see a review of Dr Laura’s Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands and Proper Care and Feeding of Marriage. Though not written from a Christian perspective, many Christian women read it.
I just find it interesting that Shaunti Feldhan presents herself as a “Harvard trained researcher.” Her degree is in economics, if I recall correctly. She might have had a statistics class. She’s not qualified to teach about marriage anyway, yet here we are.
I have frequently wondered why she is so determined to present herself as a marriage expert. Hmm?