cover image Mama Gena's Marriage Manual: Stop Being a Good Wife, Start Being a Sister Goddess

Mama Gena's Marriage Manual: Stop Being a Good Wife, Start Being a Sister Goddess

Regena Thomashauser. Simon & Schuster, $22 (240pp) ISBN 978-0-7432-6109-8

With her usual brash sass, Mama Gena (Mama Gena's Owner's and Operator's Guide to Men) preaches to her fellow Sister Goddesses (women who have joined her School of Womanly Arts or read previous books) about how to achieve a happy marriage. The secret, she says, is learning to create constant""fun"" in wedlock. By contrast, traditional preoccupations--with commitment, say, or with being a good wife--are the surest way to douse marital flames.""Commitment means absolutely nothing without fun,"" she reasons, and the""Good Wife Syndrome"" is an""insidious poison that seeps into many relationships"" when a woman shelves her desires and happiness to serve her husband.""The world exists to serve you, to celebrate you, to fulfill you,"" she declares. A partner, therefore, should be a trained pamperer and an accessory to pleasure--in short, a""best friend that you have sex with."" Mama Gena hits on a golden truism when she prescribes that women (or anyone really) must cultivate happiness in the rest of their lives and let it radiate into love relationships. She takes this idea to a hedonistic extreme, though, when she encourages followers to discover their sensuality--even through extra-marital affairs if necessary. Based on her own""research"" as wife and mother, and peppered with anecdotes from other Sister Goddesses, her gospel of self only occasionally breaks from its solipsistic celebration to remind readers to""take a moment...and notice how they the husbands are feeling."" Otherwise, men take a back seat, for better or for worse, in Mama Gena's irreverent guide to marital bliss.