“Timely…[Mendelson] makes compelling points regarding the interconnectedness of love, desire, and commitment.”
—The New Yorker

“Fascinating and morally serious . . . Vows is many books in one—and, impressively, all of them are successful.”

—Tara Isabella Burton, The Wall Street Journal

“Fascinating and morally serious . . . Vows is many books in one—and, impressively, all of them are successful.”
—Tara Isabella Burton, The Wall Street Journal

Coming skeptically to the topic in light of a recent divorce, bestseller Mendelson (Home Comforts) takes an illuminating deep dive into the meaning of wedding vows that reveals these binding phrases to still be “exactly what love ... wants to say.” Though vows were an ancient form of contract law, they did not enter into wedding rites until the Middles Ages, for the simple reason that marriage contracts were between heads of families. For example, in ancient Rome, while the marriage rite itself involved the couple, the contract was made between the groom and the father of the bride. In medieval Europe, Christian ideas about free will and choice in marriage led to the adoption of ceremonial wedding vows that resembled feudal fealty oaths, but—in what Mendelson suggests was a radical innovation—were “identical for man and woman.” Mainly consisting of a promise to “keep” the other spouse “in sickness and health,” these vows made “a dramatic statement ... of real equality between the couple.” While reactionary variations that differentiated women’s role in marriage as subservient emerged almost immediately, Mendelson tracks how vows continued to stand as a popular symbol of free choice, free love, and gender equality through subsequent centuries. The wide-ranging narrative draws on an impressive array of sources, from Ovid to the polyamorous Oneida community in 19th-century New York. It’s a hugely informative history of the very idea of what makes a marriage.
—Publishers Weekly starred review (03/18/2024)

"Written with a novelist’s empathy, in a lively style (“the anonymizing mists of history”), and with wide-ranging reference (one doesn’t often meet Bishop Thomas Cranmer and guests of Geraldo Rivera in the same volume), Vows is a fine marriage of author and subject. Whether or not you agree that marriage’s venerable vows still form “the world’s best blueprint for happiness,” you will be surprised and enlightened by Cheryl Mendelson’s new book."
—Thomas Mallon, author of Henry and Clara and Fellow Travelers

"What a magnificent book. It is about promises and the words that express promises. But it is also about love and marriage and the role they have played in our lives over the ages. The author’s learning is lightly worn, but it is profound. It is a long time since I have enjoyed a book this much and been as moved and affected by the wisdom behind it."
—Alexander McCall Smith, bestselling author of No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series