[citation needed] Derived from a set of booklets published in the 1920s and 1930s by the Psychological Press, the book seeks to help traditionally-minded women to make their marriages "a lifelong love affair".

More sources come from classic literature: Amelia (the original domestic goddess) of William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair, Agnes and Dora from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, and Deruchette from Victor Hugo's Toilers of the Sea.

Although the book was published in the early 1960s when second-wave feminism became part of the American mainstream, Fascinating Womanhood's traditional explication of happy marriage resonated in the minds and hearts of millions of women.

[5] The classes continue in Namibia, the Philippines, Japan, and Malaysia, and in the United States in Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Utah, and Virginia.

[6] Juanne N. Clarke of Wilfrid Laurier University wrote that the movement used Rosabeth Moss Kanter's model of commitment mechanisms to analyze the techniques used to gain women's allegiance.