Every Man’s Marriage: Every Man’s Guide to Winning the Heart of a Woman

by Stephen Arterburn & Fred Stoeker

You can also find this under it’s original release title, Every Woman’s Desire.

From the back: “In [this book] you can discover the common misconceptions about what it means to exercise biblical authority and understand the role of submission in the marriage relationship. This groundbreaking book can help men grasp and apply essential but often overlooked principles for marital leadership.”

And that’s essentially what this book is about: leading by serving; as Christ gave himself up for the church, so the husband is to give himself up for his wife. It is really a simple and fundamental concept—it’s just not often spoken of in terms as concrete as Arterburn and Stoeker speak of it. They argue unabashedly that the Biblical end of marriage is oneness (or to use Peter’s terminology: “dwelling in understanding”), and that anything which stands in the way of that oneness is sin. Their repeated metaphor is that of a slave and his master: the husband is to be a slave to oneness.

That said, there are a couple things that didn’t thrill me as much about this book (though certainly not so much as to cause me to not recommend this book). For starters, it’s disheartening to read in the introduction that one of the authors is a divorcee and apparently isn’t one for sound Biblical reason—or, if he is, he didn’t think that information valuable enough to mention it (or, perhaps thought his audience wouldn’t care). To a lesser degree, I found the bondservant analogy to be on its last leg by the time the book was over. That they had to explain it so often (i.e., ‘Remember, we’re not saying that you’re a slave to your wife or that you’re not the leader of the marriage’) should have said something to them about using it so often.

Overall, it’s a really good book that teaches very sound principles that are drawn from the Bible, and should be read by any husband—though probably more so by the recently wed.

The Editors do not advocate everything taught by the authors of the books we review. Like us, these authors are fallible humans and those who choose to read these books should measure them by the bible, the one true standard.