The Surrendered Wife has lots of knickers in a twist. Author Laura Doyle is a self-described "former shrew." Charlotte Allen isn't sure about that former.

I WANTED TO LIKE The Surrendered Wife, Laura Doyle's best-selling (and, in some quarters, highly controversial) self-help book. In the 285 pages tucked between pastel pink covers--the front one illustrated with the single long-stemmed red rose that is the mass-paperback symbol of chivalric male attention--Doyle promises that wives can obtain "romance, harmony, and the intimacy they crave" from their marriages if they quit nagging and let their husbands run the show.

First of all, I'm a surrendered wife myself, a ...