28 Years Ago In TIME

MARABEL MORGAN raised feminist ire long before Desperate Housewives. Her best seller Total Woman taught wives to please their men.

The most celebrated of Marabel's specialties is the suggestion of erotic costumes in which to welcome the husband home from work. "Take your bubble bath shortly before he comes home. Thrill him at your front door in your costume. A frilly new nighty and heels will probably do the trick as a starter." Marabel's readers have apparently followed these instructions to all sorts of conclusions. One woman greeted her husband in a costume of nothing but Saran Wrap bound up with a red ribbon. Another wanted to greet her husband "a la gypsy with beads, bangles and bare skin," but when she went to the door, she was surprised to confront an "equally surprised water-meter reader." Marabel admits, moreover, that she herself "looked foolish and felt even more so" the first time she dressed up in "pink baby-doll pajamas and white boots after my bubble bath." —TIME, March 14, 1977

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