Women faced conflicting demands under Francisco Franco's program of National Catholicism, finding themselves at the center of the regime's efforts to preserve tradition while promoting modernization. Imaginatively using diverse sources, Morcillo addresses the tension between expectations for the traditional woman, whose primary value to the state was reproductive, and those for the modern consumer-housewife ideal that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s. "True Catholic Womanhood" adds new insights to the gender dynamics of authoritarian states, providing a unique window through which to view the process of modernization and the transition toward democracy.