Near fine in like jacket. Octavo. 238 pp. Sharp edges and board corners. Clean throughout with no markings or annotations. A tight and attractive copy.

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Bibliographic Details

Title: Vows: The Modern Genius of an Ancient Rite
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: 2024
Language: English
ISBN 10: 1668021560
ISBN 13: 9781668021569
Binding: Hardcover
Edition: 1st Edition
Printing: 1st Printing
Condition: Near Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine

About this title

Synopsis

From the bestselling author of Home Comforts comes the “timely” (The New Yorker), “fascinating, and morally serious,” (The Wall Street Journal) story of our wedding vows—what they mean and why they still matter.

In the West, marrying is so thoroughly identified with ceremonial promises that “taking vows” is a synonym for getting married. So, it’s a surprise to realize that this custom is actually a historical and anthropological oddity. Most of the world, for most of history, married without making promises. And there’s a reason for that. Marriage by vow presupposes free choice, and free choice makes a love-match possible. It is a very modern arrangement.

Vows is both a moving memoir of two marriages and an “illuminating” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) meditation on marriage itself. Cheryl Mendelson tackles the sociology of commitment through our most traditional promises and shows why they endure. In considering the kind of marriage these vows entail, she helps answer some of life’s most urgent and personal questions: Could I, would I, or should I make these promises to someone? Using history and literature, the book describes the parameters of the behavior that traditional vows promise and, in doing so, answers a whole series of other questions: Why did wedding-by-vow arise only in the West? Why are they recited in weddings around the world today? Why have these vows lasted for nearly a thousand years? Why does the kind of marriage promised in the vows survive?

About the Author

Cheryl Mendelson is a Harvard Law School graduate, a sometime philosophy professor, and a novelist (Morningside Heights and Love, Work, Children). In 1999, she authored the classic bestselling resource for every American household, Home Comforts. Born into a rural family in Greene County, Pennsylvania, she lives in New York City with her husband.

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Store Description

Biblioasis Bookshop is a small independent bookshop, located in the heart of Old Walkerville in Windsor, Ontario. We have a carefully curated collection of new and used books, from classics, to the obscure and esoteric! We specialize in Canadian literature, first editions, signed books, the eighteenth century, and books about books. Open since 1998, we have a large selection of history, literature, philosophy, art, music, religion, science, and technical books. Thanks for visiting our profile!

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Biblioasis Inc.
1520 Wyandotte St E, Windsor, ON, N9A 3L2, Canada

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