Say...I do....

This week I finished the book Committed, the "follow-up" novel to Elizabeth's Gilbert's successful book Eat, Pray, Love (which I have previously blogged about). This book is really a self-exploration for the author about marriage, as she must marry her boyfriend to prevent him from being deported from the U.S. While this may seem like an easy task, since she is very much committed to him (in fact they have had little "not legal" declarations of their commitment to each other in private before) and in love, they both never wanted to marry again due to horrible marriage experiences in the past and thus, they must fight this incongruence to stay together.

As a somewhat cynical person who enjoys studying culture (I was an anthropology major and got a masters in it for a reason!), this book was particularly enjoyable. I really liked the parts of the novel when she explored the origins and evolution of marriage, marriage in other cultures (though she really just used case studies, they were still interesting), sociological and psychological studies of marriage, and marriage throughout the generations of her own family (I found this particularly interesting as when I think about my family, even my parents were already married by my age, and that thought alone amazes me in just how much has changed in such a short amount of time). One particularly interesting study found that "the more education a married woman has, the more money she earns, the later in life she marries, the fewer children she bears, and the more help her husband offers with household chores, the better her quality of life in marriage will be." I think I like this study because as a medical student as of August, a lot of these items will define my future (without me even helping it), and hey, it would be nice to find a guy who helps with the chores (haha)...especially if that means I will have a better marriage than others! Her writing really makes you question why people choose to get married (is it just for children or for the symbolism or for some declaration of commitment in front of witnesses?) and makes you evaluate the marriages within your own circle of family/friends. At one point she e-mails her friends asking that very question, basically why are you/why do you want to get married, and the answers she receives are so diverse that they probably would have made an interesting book on their own. And so, I put that question to you..."Why do you want to get married?" (and if you don't, why not?)

Ultimately, I enjoyed reading this book, but I could have done without her random politically oriented rants, and would have been much more satisfied if she really came to some sort of conclusion about marriage in the end. But, perhaps the point is...there really is no answer for everyone, or maybe even any one...perhaps marriage is a concept in the eye of the beholder.