Goin' To The Chapel: Dreams Of Love, Realities Of Marriage - Hardcover

Mayerson, Charlotte

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0465041809 ISBN 13: 9780465041800

Publisher: Basic Books, 1996

Synopsis

Compares the dreams and expectations of young women prior to marriage to the realities of their later married lives, citing the results of interviews with women of various religious and ehtnic groups

About this title

From AudioFile

Mayerson interviewed women of all ages around the country about their marriages, past and present. She found many willing participants and she compiled a delightful and insightful composite of marriages, good and bad. Burstyn's whimsical reading starts and ends abruptly on both ends of the tapes. Parts of the interviews are read as direct quotes from the participants. Trying to cover accents from all regions of the country, she fails only with the Southern accents. This is an enjoyable collection of viewpoints that draws its own conclusions. It is, for the most part, well performed. A.G.H. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Library Journal

A professional writer and poet, Mayerson (The Death Cycle Machine, Crown, 1996) traveled cross-country for an entire year to interview the 100 or so women whose stories are told here. She interviewed women of various age groups from most parts of the United States, but her interviewees tended to be college educated and white, so her sample is not unbiased. Chief among Mayerson's conclusions is her claim that women who daydreamed constantly of candle-lit, tulle-filled weddings and a happily-ever-after marriage were far more likely to end up unhappy than their more pragmatic sisters. Women who didn't clearly outline a list of desirable attributes in their husbands-to-be were also more likely to be unhappy with their choice of spouse than were women who had composed a shopping list of traits that they definitely sought out. These may not exactly be momentous discoveries, but the stories are interesting enough and are put together well enough?excepting a few flaws, such as a strangely out-of-place chapter on motherhood?that this journalistic survey on a topic of perennial interest deserves a place on most public library shelves.?Pamela A. Matthews, Missouri Western State Coll. Lib., St. Joseph
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0465041809
• ISBN 13: 9780465041800
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208