Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE - Marriage and Surprises

CHAPTER TWO - Marriage and Expectation

CHAPTER THREE - Marriage and History

CHAPTER FOUR - Marriage and Infatuation

CHAPTER FIVE - Marriage and Women

CHAPTER SIX - Marriage and Autonomy

CHAPTER SEVEN - Marriage and Subversion

CHAPTER EIGHT - Marriage and Ceremony

Acknowledgements

ALSO BY ELIZABETH GILBERT

PILGRIMS

STERN MEN

THE LAST AMERICAN MAN

EAT, PRAY, LOVE:

One Woman's Search for Everything

Across Italy, India and Indonesia

VIKING

Published by the Penguin Group

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First published in 2010 by Viking Penguin,

a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Copyright (c) Elizabeth Gilbert, 2010

All rights reserved

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

Gilbert, Elizabeth, date.

Committed : a skeptic makes peace with marriage / Elizabeth Gilbert.

p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-101-18983-2

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Para J.L.N.--o meu coroa

There is no greater risk than matrimony.

But there is nothing happier than a happy marriage.

BENJAMIN DISRAELI, 1870,

IN A LETTER TO QUEEN VICTORIA'S DAUGHTER LOUISE,

CONGRATULATING HER ON HER ENGAGEMENT

A Note to the Reader

A few years ago, I wrote a book called Eat, Pray, Love, which told the story of a journey I had taken around the world, alone, after a bad divorce. I was in my midthirties when I wrote that book, and everything about it represented a huge departure for me as a writer.

Before Eat, Pray, Love, I had been known in literary circles (if I was known at all) as a woman who wrote predominantly for, and about, men. I'd been working for years as a journalist for such male-focused magazines as GQ and Spin, and I had used those pages to explore masculinity from every possible angle. Similarly, the subjects of my first three books (both fiction and nonfiction) were all supermacho characters: cowboys, lobster fishermen, hunters, truckers, Teamsters, woodsmen . . .

Back then, I was often told that I wrote like a man. Now, I'm not entirely sure what writing "like a man" even means, but I do believe it is generally intended as a compliment. I certainly took it as a compliment at the time. For one GQ article, I even went so far as to impersonate a man for a week. I cropped my hair, flattened my breasts, stuffed a birdseed-filled condom down my pants, and affixed a soul patch beneath my lower lip--all in an effort to somehow inhabit and comprehend the alluring mysteries of manhood.