Book Review: Preparing to Be a Helpmeet

Book Review: Preparing to Be A Helpmeet

Ok, so this book I did not choose to read, or buy or anything. My mother was given a copy at a Ladies Bible Study she began going to, and she pushed it at me and said “tell me what you think.” I had just had my Wisdom teeth out, so during my convalescing, I decided “Why not.”

About: This book is for “young, bright eyed girls” who are planning on getting married. (“planning” meaning more along the lines of: older teen girl reading all the required books to older old-maid who doesn't know why she isn't married yet)
It is a wide brush that goes over the necessities of knowledge, planning, creativity, and compatibility to make a marriage.


Positives: While she does go into the whole “Courtship Story” thing, she does it in a way that does NOT paint a “this is how you need to do it” picture. WAY to many books out there set out models or say “at least incorporate these couple (dozen?) elements.” She does not even hint as to a “model.”
She also encourages seeking peace in one's decisions. Obviously there is a big emphasis on authorities and input from them, but she does give a section to a girl's personal decision. One part seemed a bit positive on “arranged” marriage, but it was slight.

I am not sure what audience she is writing for, but she does a good job in encouraging girls to be learning and learning and too keep on learning. She casts girls who sit at home and wait to be picked up in a negative light, and all the “good examples” are girls who are out serving God, working for a mission or a ministry, and accomplishing something with their lives.

Negatives:
My main negative in this book is that it is all directed at the girls. Now, DUH, this is a book TO girls, but it is written in such a way as to make me feel that the fate of my marriage is just about entirely on my shoulders. My preparation and my conduct is THE deciding factor and one fault of mine could ruin my marriage.
My first red flag was her telling me that women are the “man's image.” (Ch. 6, p 68) Man, she says, is in the image of the godhead (trinity), and we women (taken from their side) are in the man's image, and therefore “Our goal is to conform to being the type of woman our man needs...” (Reflections on Chapter 6, p. 128)

She spent 3 chapters on each of her three “types” of men (taken almost directly from Created to Be His Helpmeet) and then makes 3 categories for women under that and spends on chapter on all of them. She lumped them together and only really explained how each of the “girl types” fits with each guy type. [Note: I skipped all of chapter 5. My father is her “command man/King” type and it was really triggering for me to hear her gush about this type]

One confusing thing for me was trying to figure out what audience she is targeting. She speaks very angrily about vaccinations, encourages long hair and herbal healing and such. What I got from the middle chapters was that unless I was an issues-free, joyful-faced, smiling, well presented, and capable, hardworking type of girl....I wasn't marriageable material.
She has men commenting in little blurbs all through the book, and one of them says “Don't complain. Ever.” She tells girls that standing against (in disagreement with) your husband = standing against God. (Chapter 7, p 93) She says that stubbornness is a “masculine trait” and therefore unacceptable in a female.

Chapter 11 she jumps on texting. At first I thought it pretty funny until I realized the bigger picture. I don't know about other families, but my Father often picks one thing and blames everything on that. For Debi Pearl, the quantum of all evil is texting. She has a handful of negative examples and one horror story, and makes all kinds of statements about it. For instance:
“...internet 'love' is not real.” , she says that texting is used by the Devil to destroy lives, and “...there cannot be an honest, clean, courtship through texting.”
In this chapter she also deals with “seconds.” You know, the impure people? She gives an example (cast in a positive light) of a girl who turns a guy away because she didn't want her future children to have a “daddy with baggage.” The other (horror) story ends with the guy choosing a “nice, chaste girl who didn't text...” because the texting girl was an “already licked candy bar” (p. 139).
She finishes the chapter with a heavy admonition to girls. Because: “To get to know a man who is not your husband is emotional adultery. To exchange intimate knowledge with several guys is whorish.” (p. 139)


Chapter 15 deals with “honor” and sin. She talks about how her greatest hate/fear was spiders and how when she was speaking/thinking negatively about someone “God was waiting to give me [judgment] the first time my guard was down...” and her subsequent run-in with the biggest, ugliest and hairiest eight-legged monster. She then lets a friend tell her story of 3 separate issues with flea infestations when she ignored her husband's words/admonitions or thought that she knew better than he did.

She finishes up this chapter with the most terrible statement in the entire book: (p. 188) (for a girl raised by a “dominant, forceful father”)
“Life is easier for girls raised by dominant, forceful fathers because they are accustomed to obeying. They were never given any other option and grew accustomed to strong authority. In contrast, girls raised by kind, gentle fathers often get bitter toward their husbands if they are demanding.”
(I guess she expects husbands to be demanding and forceful? You have to assume a lot in this book)

Chapter 16 types depression as some sort of petty created problem: “...every black depression stems from someone 'supposing' another meant evil toward them, used the, thought offensively toward them, or whatever else the mind contrives. Imagine being free from all these misapprehensions!”

The final chapter is a word from some men. Her husband first, and another man after. I was glad it was in the back of the book, because it made me want to quit reading altogether, but I shall tell you about it anyway.
The other guy is apparently a preacher and he talks about a time when they needed an immediate emergency plumbing done the same time he was offered a preaching time at a prison he had been trying to get into for a long time. His wife offered to do the plumbing, and from the way he talks, she does everything and he is blessed to be free to preach, which is his calling. Reading it I sat there and wondered why he was married in the first place if his calling to preach was so important that his wife did EVERYTHING else (homeschooling, housework, plumbing, bills, etc, etc,etc). She may be his helpmeet, but she isn't helping him with anything when she is doing it all herself. But that is just me.

Now, on to the first comments, which some of you will please skip over due to the heart attack risk. I just about threw the book across the room. Michael Pearl gives us a look into what he tells “all” the guys who ask him what to look for in a woman. And, he then twists it into a benign character quality to make every single girl on the planet definite “trouble”. The quote in it's entirety says:
“I tell young men, if a young woman thinks she is a real catch, then know she is not. If she feels she is doing you a favor marrying you, then know for a fact you are marrying trouble. Make sure she feels blessed that you have chosen her. Keep searching until you find a girl with the most valuable of all character traits: a thankful heart.” [Chapter 17, p.206]

So, unless I fall at this guys feet in worship and say “ME?!?!? You are going to marry ME!?!?! Oh, you are SOOOOOO out of my league, I am BLESSED that *I* am your chosen bride” I am un-thankful piece of trouble?
So, that is the advice to men. For women it is: “Become the woman he needs.”



In summary, I think this book will convict a lot of women. We are only too willing to believe that we are at fault and only to willing to expend atomic bombs of energy to fix things we believe need to be fixed and repair what we are told we have damaged. The problem is that this will only work where the women are at fault. “Happily Ever After” will never happen when only one person is working to make things better! And since the men are told to find a woman who worships them and excused when they are demanding, insensitive, and forceful, they are not likely to see any place they need to change or work.
Heaven pity the poor women (girls) who follow this book.