If you had enjoyed Eat Pray Love a little too much, then this book might not be for you. The book is quite a disappointment, with a lesser raw feel to it. It’s more like a social discourse on marriage, while “Eat Pray Love” is more of a memoir, which feels so much more private and "real".
I definitely didn’t enjoy this as much as EPL, and I would classify Committed as more of an educational reading and it does read kinda like someone’s dissertation on the history and culture of marriage. What I found interesting is the description of the Hmong's (a small tribe in Laos) wedding practice, which is very very similar to a typical Chinese wedding in Singapore.
For instance, the wedding couple would invite tons of people to their wedding dinner, even people they do not know. These people would give money in a packet to the couple during their wedding dinner, which were then collected in a box. After the dinner was over, the couple would stay up all night to count the money they had received, and document the amounts and from whom the money was from, in a book.
This amount would be returned to the person who had given it to them, when it was his/her turn to get married. And this amount would often be more than what they received from this person, taking into account inflation/interest rate.
Exactly like our practice.
It's kinda funny how a lot of people yearned to get married, when marriage is not necessarily beneficial to them. Most women are still expected to be in charge of the household chores, taking care of the kids, etc. In our moden society, this expectation also comes with the additional stress of having to contribute to the household income, due to so-called EQUALITY of the sexes. So you see, marriage, most often, do not benefit women. Men always get the longer end of the stick. But of course, I am not saying this is always true. I, for one, do not do as much homework or contribute as much to the household income. I guess, I did get the longer end of the stick.
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