VOWS

The author of Home Comforts traces the history of marriage vows in Western society and argues for their continued relevance.

Making frequent references to her own two marriages—one unhappy and short-lived, the other happy and long-lasting—Mendelson analyzes the evolution of traditional marriage vows from their beginnings as a variant on the feudal vows held between lord and vassal in medieval times. The author clearly favors the traditional Anglican vows, crafted by “prose master” Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in 1549 and still in wide use today, largely unchanged except for the excision of the vow by women to “obey” their husbands. “The very act of taking marriage vows in a ceremony has a powerful psychological effect,” writes Mendelson, and “the traditional vows are short and dramatic,” as opposed to vows crafted by the couple, which she believes evoke more chuckles than deep-felt tears. The author dives deeply into each element of her subject, from the commitment to staying together “in sickness and in health,” which is “the oldest, the clearest, and, one supposes, the most likely to be fulfilled,” to the vow to “forsake all others,” a more recent and less universal vow. As she segues from historical analysis to broader philosophical discussions of contemporary marriage, Mendelson also shifts to optimistic blanket statements—e.g., “Western-style monogamy, with its equal genders and social freedoms, is an institution honed into workability and high satisfaction after a few millennia of trial and error and insight gathering”; “almost everyone wants unending love, which means that they want marriage, even if they don't understand that they do”; the number of marriages that end in divorce says very little about the staying power of love.” Questions about the shortcomings of matrimony find no place in this chatty survey.

An essentially conservative book that will fortify the opinions of fans of marriage.