Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage (2010)

Sure, this is a tad excessively introspective and really a bit depressing (marriage doesn’t always come out that well in her analysis, being particularly hard on women). But she sells it pretty well, especially in the audiobook version which she narrates herself. You probably already know if you like this kind of thing. ( )

I found Elizabeth Gilbert's Committed primarily to be annoyingly rambling narcissistic insecurity similar in vein to Woody Allen, only not at all funny. While I understand being afraid to jump back into the fire once you've been burned, writing an entire book about it seems a bit over the top. She convincingly writes of a million reasons why she shouldn't get married, and only one reason why she should - immigration laws. For a world traveler she also seemed extremely naive about the fact that Felipe shouldn't be living in the USA on a tourist visa (especially since he was apparently doing business in the USA). Of course that was going to come back and bite them.

I didn't realize that was the theme of the book. I expected it to be as marketed - a story about different types of marriage in many different cultures.

The book isn't a total loss. When Ms. Gilbert wrote about her personal experiences with members of other cultures and her own family's experiences I found those bits interesting. When she goes on and on about the writings of other authors I found it boring like reading a text book for a class in which you have no interest.
( )

I listened to the author reading this in-depth personal investigation into the institution of marriage in under a day. A compelling personal story elucidates the reasons people have for not wishing to marry or re-marry, and how things have changed over the years. It certainly didn't dissuade my longing to find a husband. ( )

I had fun reading this book and learned quite a bit about marriage through history and in a couple different cultures. The best part of the book was when the author described what will lead to the most successful/perfect marriage, and she says "Who are these people?!" I need to send her a message because my husband and I pretty much fit the mold she describes from research on enduring marriages.
Please allow me to indulge myself here by sharing this passage to show you why I got such a kick out of this book.


...when I sat down one night in Laos with the Rutgers report and tried to concoct a template for the least possible divorce-prone couple in America, I came up with quite a Frankensteinian duo.
First, you must find yourself two people of the same race [check], age [check, three months apart], religion [check], cultural background [a little different being from north and south but our parents raised us similarly], and intellectual level [check, we have the same types of intelligence and as far as we can tell probably nearly identical IQs] whose parents had never divorced [check]. Make these two people wait until they are about forty-five years old before you allow them to marry [fail here since I was 23, and he was 22, but we have been together for almost 7 years total now and are just fine. We are both the oldest siblings in our families and have always been very mature and responsible for our age, so we were probably at the maturity level of a 30/40 year old person here.] - without letting them live together first [check], of course. Ensure that they both fervently believe in God [we used to believe in the Christian god when we got married but have now broadened our spirituality together. We made that transition at the same time.] and that they utterly embrace family values [check, family always comes before friends for me. Although I have found more and more friends who feel like family to me due to the internet.], but forbid them to have any children of their own. [HUGE check here, neither of us have ever wanted kids] (Also, the husband must warmly embrace the precepts of feminism.) [check, he does 100%; he was brought up that way just like I was] Make them live in the same town as their families [check, ever since we've been together we've lived within 40 miles of his family, and now we are living in the same house as my family], and see to it that they spend many happy hours bowling and playing cards with their neighbors [fail again, though this does sound fun] - that is, while they're not out there in the world succeeding at the wonderful careers [check, we both have the exact same career and work for the same company] that they each launched on account of their fabulous higher educations [check, we went to the same school and both got Bachelor of Science degree in mathematical related fields (math/physics for him, physics/chemistry for me)]
Who are these people?

Me and my husband!! LOL ( )

Seeing as the only things Elizabeth Gilbert and I have in common are that we're both white female Americans of European descent who like the travel, it's not surprising that our opinions about marriage are nothing alike.

In summary, Elizabeth Gilbert and her lover/soul mate/etc. Felipe, were forced by the United States government to get married. Liz had serious issues with this due to her previous marriage, and so, in an attempt to come to grips with the whole concept of marriage, she travels around Asia discussing marriage with different people, trying to understand the history, etc., etc. of marriage from others' perspectives. Me? I got married at 19, changed my name, etc. without any real thoughts about the meaning or history of marriage from any other perspective than my own LDS one. I didn't think to, and even if I had, honestly, I wouldn't have thought TWICE about it. Haha...

Overall, the book was interesting, but I found myself going, "Nuh uh...", "That's not how it is!", "What???!?!?" a lot. I can't say that I agree with any of her conclusions. (In fact, she had a hard time coming to ANY conclusions because of the WIDELY varied ideas surrounding marriage...) But her logic and reasoning were mostly pretty out there from my LDS perspective.

It DID make me think a lot about the history of Christianity. Some of the ideas she shared about what the early Christian Church thought about marriage were pretty disturbingly and glaringly off. BUT, I belong to a restorationist Church, so that stuff doesn't apply to me. I did NOT agree with the stuff she said about Jesus Christ or Paul though. Nope! :)

Anyway, over all, interesting, and a great audiobook read by the author, but I can't say I agreed with much of anything she said. *shrugs* It's interesting to see how the "other half" thinks though, I guess! ( )