BOOK REVIEW: Lust The Disease, Marriage The Cure?

(Originally published 2008, Hardcover edition 220 pages)

First of all, I am a 51-year-old, happily married, male feminist about to celebrate our 29th year of marriage. We have two, teenage sons. The author, Susan Squire, is also married and has a daughter. With that said, I must stress that this is not a man-bashing book. But, seriously, no person with half a brain can say with a straight face that men's treatment of women throughout history has been just dandy. Ms. Squire's work is a well-written journey through the evolution of marriage. So, please be warned... if you believe in Creationism, you're going to hate her book. If you believe there should be no criticism of anything between the pages of the Bible,... boy... you're definitely going to hate her book. If you quietly believe women are inferior to men, (yup, you guessed it) you're going to hate her book. And that's too bad because Ms. Squire does a wonderful job of explaining how marriage evolved into its present-day manifestation.

The book highlights what the author deems the three male strategies to oppress women: the patriarchal marriage where the rule of the father was supreme; the double standard of sexual fidelity that was very loose for the guys but seriously rigid for the gals; and lastly, a woman's place is at home. Thankfully, Ms. Squire brings a great deal of cheeky smarts to the table. The book is peppered with many funny comments about the odd reasoning religious leaders and "great thinkers" pulled out of their backsides to keep women under man's thumb. I'm tellin' ya, before science came along, adults' cause-and-effect reasoning for such things as pregnancy, menstration, and sexual attraction was right up there with the mental acuity of a banana. Ms. Squire focuses mostly on such notable subjects as Athens, Greece, St. Augustine, the Dark Ages (6th-11th Century), the battle between the Church and different aristocracies, the Black Plague, the looney brutal Inquisition, Martin Luther and concluding with the Reformation. She also highlights some now obscure individuals and literature that had an impact or represented the mindset of the masses.

Other books, such as Karen Armstrong's The Gospel According to Woman, do a more thorough job of showing how the Bible is misogynistic. Because the Bible and the Church had such a large reach over people's lives through most of Western history, Ms. Squire covers some of the same ground as Ms. Armstrong but with more fun and flare. As entertaining and informative as the author's argument is presented, it still saddened me to know that much of the Middle East and some pockets of Western culture still hold to the barbaric, female-oppressive, religious doctrines. Women still have a long way to go before most cultures accept them as equals to men. Everyone currently living on this planet will long have turned to dust before or IF that ever happens. An informative, entertaining read.

(Meyers - A few years ago, I started writing, under the pseudonym Franklin the Mouse, short reviews at Amazon's web site. This is my most recent review #296)