Performing Marriage: Marriage Renewal Rituals as Cultural Performance

University of Nebraska - Lincoln

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Papers in Communication Studies Communication Studies, Department of

Winter 2002

Performing Marriage: Marriage Renewal Rituals as

Cultural Performance

Leslie A. Baxter

University of Iowa, leslie-baxter@uiowa.edu

Dawn O. Braithwaite

University of Nebraska–Lincoln, dbraithwait[email protected]du

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Publis he d in So ut hern Communicat ion Journal 67:2 (Winter 2002), pp. 94–109; doi: 10.1080/1041794020

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Used by permission.

Publis he d online April 1, 2009.

Performing Marriage: Marriage Renewal

Rituals as Cultural Performance

Leslie A. Baxter and Dawn O. Braithwaite

Corresponding a uthor – Leslie A. Baxter, Department of Communic ation S tudies, University of Iowa, Iowa City,

IA 52242, email leslie-baxler@uio wa.edu

Abstract

This inte rpre tive s tudy e xamine d how the ma rria ge re newal ritua l re fle cts the social c ons truction of

ma rriage in the Unite d States. Two culturally promine nt ide ologie s of ma rria ge were interwoven in

our interviews of 25 married persons who had renewed their marriage vows: (a) a domina nt ide ology

of community and (b) a more muted ideology of individua lis m. The ide ology of community was

e vide nced by a cons truction of ma rriage fe aturing the mes of public a ccountability, social e mbed-

de dne ss, and pe rmanence. By contrast, the ideology of individua lism cons tructed ma rria ge a round

themes of love, choice, a nd individua l growth.

Most interpersonal communication scholars approach the study of marriage in one of two

ways: (a) marriage as context, or (b) marriage as outcome. In contrast, in the present study

we adopt an alternative way to envision marriage: marriage as cultural performance. We

frame this study using two complementary theoretical perspectives: social constructionism

and ritual performance theory. In particular, we examine how the cultural performance of

marriage renewal rituals reflects the social construction of marriage in the United States.

In an interpretive analysis of interviews with marital partners who had recently renewed

their marriage vows, we examine the extent to which the two most prominent ideological

perspectives on marriage—individualism and community—organize the meaning of mar-

riage for our participants.

BAXTER AND BRAITHWAITE, SOUTHERN C OMMUNICATION J OURNAL 67 (2002)

The Socially Contested Construction of Marriage

Communication scholars interested in face-to-face interaction tend to adopt one of t w o

general approaches to the study of marriage, what Whitchurch and Dickson (1999) h a v e

called the interpersonal communication approach and the family communication ap-

proach. The family communication approach, with which the present study is aligned,

views communication as constitutive of the family. That is, through their communicative

practices, parties construct their social reality of who their family is and the meanings that

organize it. From this constitutive, or social constructionist perspective, social reality is an

ongoing process of producing and reproducing meanings and social patterns through the

interchanges among people (Berger & Luckmann, 1966; Burr, 1995; Gergen, 1994). From a

family communication perspective, marriage is thus an ongoing discursive accomplish-

ment. It is achieved through a myriad of interaction practices, including but not limited to,

private exchanges between husbands and wives, exchanges between the couple and their

extended kinship and friendship networks, public and private rituals such as weddings

and anniversaries, and public discourse by politicians and others surrounding family val-

ues. Whitchurch and Dickson (1999) argued that, by contrast, the interpersonal communi-

cation approach views marriage as an independent or a dependent variable whose

functioning in the cause-and-effect world of human behavior can be determined. For ex-

ample, interpersonal communication scholars often frame marriage as an antecedent con-

textual variable in examining how various communicative phenomena are enacted in

married couples compared with nonmarried couples, or in the premarital compared with

postmarital stages of relationship development. Interpersonal communication scholars of-

ten also consider marriage as a dependent variable in examining which causal variables

lead courtship pairs to marry or keep married couples from breaking up, such as the extent

to which such communication phenomena as conflict or disclosive openness during court-

ship predict whether a couple will wed.

Advocates of a constitutive or social constructionist perspective argue that the discur-

sive production and reproduction of the social order is far from the univocal, consensually

based model that scholars once envisioned (Baxter & Montgomery, 1996). Instead, the social

world is a cross-current of multiple, often competing, conflictual perspectives. The social

order is wrought from multivocal negotiations in which different interests, ideologies, and

beliefs interact on an ongoing basis. The process of “social ordering” is not a monologic

conversation of seamless coherence and consensus; rather, it is a pluralistic cacophony of

discursive renderings, a multiplicity of negotiations in which different lived experiences

and different systems of meaning are at stake (Billig, Condor, Edwards, Gane, Middleton,

& Radley, 1988; Shotter, 1993). As Bakhtin (1981) expressed: “Every concrete utterance . . .

serves as a point w here centrifugal as well as centripetal forces are brought to bear. The

processes of centralization and decentralization, of unification and disunification, intersect

in the utterance” (p. 272). Thus, interaction events are enacted dialogically, with multiple

“voices,” or perspectives, competing for discursive dominance or privilege as the hege-

monic, centripetal center of a given cultural conversation in the moment. Social life is a

collection of dialogues between centripetal and centrifugal groups, beliefs, ideologies, an d

perspectives.

BAXTER AND BRAITHWAITE, SOUTHERN C OMMUNICATION J OURNAL 67 (2002)

In modern American society, the institution of marriage is subject to endless negotiation

by those who enact and discuss it. Existing research suggests that marriage is a contested

terrain whose boundary is disputed by scholars and laypersons alike. One belief is that

marriage is essentially the isolated domain of the two married spouses, a private haven

separate from the obligations and constraints of the broader social order. The other belief

is that marriage is a social institution that is embedded practically and morally in the

broader society.

Bellah and his colleagues (Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, & Tipton, 1985) have ar-

gued that this “boundary dispute” surrounding marriage reflects an omnipresent ideolog-

ical tension in the American society that can be traced to precolonial times—a tension

between the cultural strands of utilitarian/expressive individualism and moral/ social com-

munity. The marriage of utilitarian/expressive individualism emphasizes freedom from

societal traditions and obligations, privileging instead its private existence in fulfilling the

emotional and psychological needs of the two spouses. Marriage, according to this ideol-

ogy, is not conceived as a binding obligation; rather, it is viewed as existing only as t h e

expression of the choices of the free selves who constitute the union. Marriage is built on love

for partner, expressive openness between partners, self-development, and self-gratification.

It is a psychological contract negotiated between self-fulfilled individuals acting in their

own self-interests. Should marriage cease to be gratifying to the selves in it, it should naturally

end. Bellah et al. (1985) argue that this conception of marriage dominates the discursive

landscape of modern American society, occupying, in Bakhtin’s (1981) terms, the centrip-

etal center.

By contrast, the moral/social community view of marriage emphasizes its existence as a

social institution with obligations to uphold traditional values of life-long commitment

and duty, and to cohere with other social institutions in maintaining the existing mor al

and social order. According to this second ideology, marriage is anchored by social obli-

gation—expectations, duties, and accountabilities to others. In this way, marriage is

grounded in its ties to the larger society and is not simply a private haven for emotional

gratification and intimacy for the two spouses. Bellah et al. (1985) argue that this view of

marriage, although clearly distinguishable in the discursive landscape of modern Ameri-

can society, occupies the centrifugal margin rather than the hegemonic center in modern

social constructions of marriage in the United States.

These two cultural ideologies of marriage also are readily identifiable in existing social

scientific research on marital communication (Allan, 1993). The “private haven” ideology

is the one that dominates existing research on communication in marriage (Milardo &

Wellman, 1992). In this sort of research on marital communication, scholars draw a clear

boundary demarcation around the spousal unit and proceed to understand how marriage

works by directing their empirical gaze inward to the psychological characteristics of the

two married persons and the interactions that take place within this dyad (Duck, 1993). By

contrast, other more sociologically oriented scholars who study communication in mar-

riage emphasize that the marital relationship is different from its nonmarital counterparts

of romantic and cohabiting couples precisely because of its status as an institutionalized

social unit (e.g., McCall, McCall, Denzin, Suttles, & Kurth, 1970). Scholars who adopt the

latter view direct their empirical gaze outside marital dyads to examine how marriage is

BAXTER AND BRAITHWAITE, SOUTHERN C OMMUNICATION J OURNAL 67 (2002)

enacted in the presence of societal influences, such as legitimization and acceptance of a

pair by their kinship and friendship networks, and societal barriers to marital dissolution

(e.g., Milardo, 1988).

A third approach to the study of marriage is identifiable in the growing number of dia-

logically oriented scholars interested in communication in personal relationships w ho a r e

pointing to the status of marriage as simultaneously a private culture of two as well as an

institutionalized element of the broader social order (e.g., Brown, Airman, Werner, 1992;

Montgomery, 1992). According to Shotter (1993) and Bellah et al. (1985), couples face this

dilemma of double accountability on an ongoing basis. Although the ideology of utilitar-

ian/expressive individualism is given dominance, “most Americans are, in fact, caught be-

tween ideals of freedom and obligation” (Bellah et al., p. 102).

For example, Shotter (1993) has argued that relationship partners are accountable or

answerable for their relational actions both to themselves and to others outside the mar-

riage, and that such double accountability presents the pair of spouses with a dilemma

between public and private ideologies of relating. That is, public traditions, expectations,

and constraints are embodied in a society’s historical and ongoing reinterpretation and

debate about different ways of living. Private relational realities emerge in the joint actions

of partners when they interact in a responsive way solely to each other, creating spontane-

ous dialogues that are out of the control of prevailing social ideologies but are dependent

on the uniqueness of the pair’s acting together in the privacy of the relational culture cre-

ated between the two of them. Further, Shotter argued that the more partners reference

public accountabilities in their private relational life, the more socially moral, competent,

and intelligible they appear to outside others, but also the more intimacy fades in the pri-

vacy of their relationship. In contrast, solely referencing their jointly-created reality, while

characteristic of intimacy, is to be publicly unaccountable and alienated from society.

Given this apparent double accountability of marriage, scholarly attention needs to fo-

cus on how marital couples negotiate their way through the sometimes disparate ideolo-

gies of marriage as a “private haven” of self-expression, choice, and gratification, on t h e

one hand, and marriage as a social institution with obligations and duties, on the other

hand. One way to study this is by examining artifacts or rituals that publicly reflect the

negotiated outcome of the construction of marriage upon which they agreed. Such public

displays or performances function as meta-communicative statements by couples that

clearly embody an already established stance on what marriage is and should be.

Ritual Performances as Multivocal

How do spouses respond to the dilemma between their private ideology of marriage a nd

the cultural, institutional, public ideology of marriage? Several scholars have argued that

ritual performances function as particularly powerful rhetorical mechanisms in negotiat-

ing the multivocal dilemmas of the social world (Altman, Brown, Staples, & Werner, 1992;

Roberts, 1988; Werner, Altman, Brown, & Ginat, 1993).

In general terms, a ritual is a communication event involving a structured sequence of

symbolic acts in which homage is paid to some sacred cultural object (Goffman, 1967).

Turner (1969) has argued that ritual performances are fundamentally multivocal in nature,

BAXTER AND BRAITHWAITE, SOUTHERN C OMMUNICATION J OURNAL 67 (2002)

simultaneously incorporating at a symbolic level multiple, competing themes. He argued

that rituals are constituted in symbols that exhibit the properties of condensation of larger

cultural themes, unification of disparate referents, and polarization of meaning:

A . . . [ritual] symbol . . . represents many things at the same time: it is multivocal,

not univocal. Its referents are not all of the same logical order but are drawn from

many domains of social experience and ethical evaluation. Finally, its referents

tend to cluster around opposite semantic poles. (Turner, 1969, p. 52)

Thus, to Turner, a ritual is a condensed cultural conversation in which the multiple, com-

peting voices that play in everyday social life are brought together in bold relief and given

voice simultaneously.

A ritual performance gains its cultural significance in its liminality (Turner, 1969, 1988).

That is, ritual performance separates cultural members from everyday life for the period

of the performance, placing them in a suspended cultural state or “limbo.” Ritual perfor-

mances are enacted within a definite time span, or at least with distinct beginning and end

points; they involve an organized program of activity; they have a place and occasion of

enactment; and they involve a set of performers and an audience (Turner, 1988). The limi-

nal nature of ritual performances positions them as occasions to observe cultural reflexivity

at work, or what Turner calls performative reflexivity. In performative reflexivity, cultural

members are afforded an opportunity to step back from everyday living, to “bend or reflect

back upon themselves, upon the relations, actions, symbols, meanings, codes, roles, sta-

tuses, social structures, ethical and legal rules, and other sociocultural components”

(Turner, 1988, p. 24). In other words, ritual performances can be viewed as cultur al occa-

sions of metacommunication in which cultural members step back from everyday life in

order to reflect symbolically on that very life.

In the present study, we focus on a ritual performance that is gaining popularity in

modern American society—the renewal of marriage vows (Braithwaite & Baxter, 1995).

Increasingly, married couples are choosing to renew their marriage vows in public cere-

monies witnessed by others, usually to commemorate an important milestone in their mar-

riage such as a 25th or 50th anniversary of their wedding (Braithwaite & Baxter, 1995). Our

purpose in this study is to examine how the marriage renewal ritual reflects the social con-

struction of marriage in the United States. Guided by Turner’s (1988) ritual performance

theory, examining this ritual allows us to assess the extent to which the two most pr omi-

nent ideological perspectives have been incorporated into these constructions by long-

term marital pairs.

Methods

Participants

We pursued the purpose of our exploratory study by interviewing people w ho had re-

cently participated in a marriage renewal ritual in their respective marriage, or who w er e

planning to participate in this ritual in the near future. Although our analysis of the inter-

view transcripts is limited to the particular sample of persons we interviewed, an effort

BAXTER AND BRAITHWAITE, SOUTHERN C OMMUNICATION J OURNAL 67 (2002)

was made to seek a diversity of perspectives on the renewal ritual experience. Therefore,

we sought informants through three primary means: local newspaper announcements of

vow renewals; announcements of the study in university classes and among work col-

leagues; and the snowballing of referrals from early informants. When informants agreed

to participate in the study, we gave them the choice of being interviewed alone or with

their spouse. The choice usually depended on whether it was possible for the interviewer

to be present when both partners were together. Overall, ten interview s were conducted

separately with the husbands and wives who comprised five couples; four interviews were

conducted jointly with husband-wife pairs; two interviews were conducted with husbands

only; and five interview s were conducted with w ives only. A total of 25 informants were

interviewed through 21 interviews that captured the vow renewal experiences of 16 mar-

ried couples.

All 11 of the male informants were Caucasian, with a mean age of 50 years and a mean

of 16 years of education. Fourteen of the 16 female informants were Caucasian, an d t w o

were Hispanic in ethnicity. The mean age of female informants was 48 years, and the mean

education level was 13 years. The marriages that were honored through vow renew al cer-

emonies had a mean length of 29 years. Two of the couples represented in the interviews

were in the planning stage for their respective renewal events, and the 14 couples repre-

sented were reporting on vow renew al events that had already taken place.

Data Collection and Analysis

We relied on intensive, open-ended interviewing in order to probe the depth of informants’

perceptions and experiences (Kvale, 1996; McCracken, 1988). Interviewers asked a series

of questions designed to elicit open-ended narrative responses from informants, such as

“Where/w hen was the vow renew al enacted?”; “Who w as present for the event and why

were these particular people there?”; “Why did you do the vow renewal?”; “What went

on at the vow renew al ceremony?”; “What were the outcomes or effects of the vow re-

new al?” Informants often used the interview as an occasion to share with the interviewer

a variety of artifacts from the vow renewal event, such as copies of invitations to the cere-

mony, pictures and photo albums, videotapes of the ceremony, and objects involved in the

renewal event like special clothing worn during the ceremony, or music played at the

event. Interviewers probed informants about the meanings and functions of these artifacts,

such as “Why was this particular music selected?”

All interviews were audio tape-recorded and subsequently transcribed for purposes of

interpretive analysis. Analysis revolved around two tasks. Our first analytical task was to

identify the characteristics of the marriage vow renew al ceremony that would qualify it as

a ritual performance. Using Turner’s (1988) description of a ritual performance, we looked

for evidence of a place and occasion for performing an organized program of activity, with

an audience, that took place within a finite time period. Basically, this analytic task was

organized around Spradley’s (1979) semantic relationships of Location for Action (“X is a

place for doing Y”), Sequence (“X is a step in Y’), and Means-En d (“X is a way to do Y”).

Our second analytic task was that of examining the transcripts to determine the meanings

of “marriage” reflected in our informants’ descriptions of their vow renewal ceremonies.

BAXTER AND BRAITHWAITE, SOUTHERN C OMMUNICATION J OURNAL 67 (2002)

This analytic task was organized around Spradley’s (1979) semantic relationships of Ra-

tionale (“X is a reason for doing Y”), Cause-Effect (“X is a result of Y”), and Attribution (“X

is an attribute [characteristic] of Y”). A unit of data was a discourse segment that described

a location, a sequence, a means-end, a rationale, a cause-effect, or an attribute.

Our next task w as the coding process. Central to the coding process is what Strauss and

Corbin (1990) refer to as theoretical sensitivity. In short, this sensitivity involves an open

mind but not a theoretically empty mind in approaching the data. The coding process in-

volved performing open, axial, and selective coding, w here we functioned inductively,

open to what the data contained. However, w e w ere also mindful of the two ideologies of

marriage identified in extant research and theory, taking note when we saw points of over-

lap. As a check to ensure that we w ere not forcing these ideologies onto our data, we en-

gaged in an interpretive exercise known as negative case analysis in which we interrogated

our data analytically in search of alternative explanations that would render our analysis

invalid (Erlandson, Harris, Skipper, & Allen, 1993). For example, we asked of a given da-

tum whether a third ideology was present rather than the two identified in existing re-

search and theory.

To perform open coding, we initially functioned independently of one another, using

the constant-comparison method (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). In general, this method is an

iterative one in which a researcher derives categories of X based on a judgment of sameness

or difference from one datum to the next. The first datum for a given semantic relationship

provides the first category of X; if the second datum is judged somehow different from the

first, a second category is added, and so on until all of the data have been interpreted. This

process is both iterative and emergent in that categories are added, combined, and revised

on an ongoing basis. Categorization is completed when no further changes are required in

a given category set.

We then met to discuss our open coding and to perform axial coding and selective cod-

ing (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). These two forms of analysis differ largely in terms of t h eir

level of abstraction and share the common goal of integrating findings from different se-

mantic relationships in search of more general themes that bring coherence to one’s anal-

ysis. In the present study, we first conducted axial coding by searching for commonalities

across semantic relationships. For example, love/intimacy surfaced as a category in several

semantic relationships: love for partner emerged as a reason our informants reported engag-

ing in a vow renewal, the renewal of love and joy/satisfaction in the expression of love emerged

as perceived outcomes of the vow renewal, and articulation of continuing love for partner

emerged as a component of the actual renewal ceremony. At the axial level of coding, a

theme of social embeddedness surfaced under the Rationale semantic relationship (saying

thanks to others for the success of the marriage was a reason for engaging in the renewal

ritual), the Cause-Effect semantic relationship (solidifying bonds with family and friends

was an perceived outcome of the ceremony), and the Means-End semantic relationship

(informants describing to us how they incorporated significant others into the actual cere-

mony).

At the level of selective coding, we noticed that themes cohered into broader ideological

perspectives on marriage and that these ideologies were not expressed with equal force by

our informants. These ideologies are discussed in the next section.

BAXTER AND BRAITHWAITE, SOUTHERN C OMMUNICATION J OURNAL 67 (2002)

Results

The Ritual Performance of Marriage Renewal

The marriage renewal event clearly meets Turner’s (1988) criteria of a ritual. Central to the

vow renewal event was its public nature. The vow renewal involved an audience w ho

functioned in a variety of capacities. The event was a public enactment that typically in-

volved a ceremony in which the spouses exchanged vow s. After the ceremony had ended,

it was usually followed by some sort of celebratory reception or party. Three types of set-

tings were used for vow renewals: private residences, churches, and reception halls rented

specially for the occasion. Even when the vow renew al ceremony was held in the same

room as the reception, the two events were demarcated by time or space. Couples would

end the ceremony and start the party, and they would move to another part of the room

or rearrange the space for food, drink, dancing, etc.

Two types of vow renewal ceremonies were described by our informants. The first type,

experienced by four of the couples represented in our sample, was what we termed a mass

ceremony in which a presiding member of the clergy administered vows to many couples

en masse. These mass renewal rituals were typically initiated by the church, rather than by

individual couples. These mass ceremonies were enacted in the presence of other congre-

gation members and invited guests, and tended to be fairly large in size. Half of the mass

renewal events w ere part of a regularly scheduled church service and the others w ere a

special church service held at a different time. For both forms, the reception typically oc-

curred afterward in the church’s reception hall.

The second type of vow renewal ceremony was initiated and planned by the pairs of

spouses themselves; self-initiated ceremonies were experienced by twelve of the couples

represented in our sample. Ceremonies of this type often took place on milestone anniver-

saries, such as the 25th or 50th. A smaller number of these ceremonies took place as a

marker that the couple had successfully come through a difficult period, such as a separa-

tion, and was celebrating the start of a new chapter in their marital life. The couple-initiated

ritual involved members of the couple’s network, including children, family, friends, and,

in many cases, church members. The smallest number of participants assembled for a re-

new al event was four, and the largest numbered several hundred; however, most had a

large number of people present.

All of the public renewal events involved an officiating person who administered the

vows of renewal to the couple. In all but one instance, this person was the couple’s pa s t or,

minister, or priest. The members of the clergy often performed preparatory work as well,

consulting with one or both members of the couple in advance of the ceremony w it h r e-

spect to the type of ceremony to be performed and the content of the vows that would be

administered during the ceremony.

Participants other than the presiding official enacted a variety of roles in the vow re-

new al event, three of which w ill be discussed here because of their frequency in our data.

First, there were preparatory or planning roles in which family members, particularly

daughters, assisted the couple in coordinating the plans for the event. Second, participants

enacted assigned roles during the ritual, such as forming a traditional wedding party con-

sisting of ushers or bridesmaids for the ceremony. Finally, participants performed the role

BAXTER AND BRAITHWAITE, SOUTHERN C OMMUNICATION J OURNAL 67 (2002)

of witness when they were invited guests. In the case of mass ceremony renewals, partici-

pants had the role of co-enactor of vows.

The renewal ceremony itself usually took the form of a traditional West ern w edding.

Many of these vow renewal ceremonies were virtually indistinguishable from initial w ed-

ding vows. Many wives wore wedding gowns and husbands wore suits or tuxedos. The

couple often involved participants as members of the wedding party. Most often, couples

asked their children, relatives, or close friends to enact traditional wedding party roles as

witnesses, attendants, or ushers. A few couples asked members of their original wedding

party to reenact their previous roles for the renewal event.

The public renewal events involved many artifacts of an initial wedding event, includ-

ing a decorated wedding cake, flower bouquets and arrangements, wedding decorations

like bells and bows, guest books, and a photographer or videographer. Most of the couples

designed and mailed out formal invitations. Many of the couples had artifacts ma de t o

commemorate the vow renewal ritual, most often a ring for the wife and, in some cases,

rings for both wife and husband. Some couples had new rings made and some alter ed

existing rings.

Centripetal-Centrifugal Voices in the Marriage Renewal Ritual

The interviews suggested that the marriage renewal ritual gives voice both to the ideology

of utilitarian/expressive individualism and to the ideology of moral/social community.

That is, our informants described their marriage renewal vows in ways that con s t ructed

marriage as both a private emotional site of self-expression, intimacy, and gratification,

and a public institution embedded in the broader social order. Typical of this ideological

blend is the following statement by a 74-year-old husband in one of our couple interviews.

This couple, married for 49 years, participated in a mass renewal ceremony.

What was my motivation [for renewing the marital vows]? I just thought it was

a good exercise in spiritual renewal and family renewal, and it would be worth-

while. Marriage is not really a totally private thing; it has social implications that

I think are important. I felt that, uh, we could, well, make a contribution for that

reason but also personally, I think it enriches our personal self. (#9, 11, 39–44)

This statement evidences a celebration of personal selves, and this ideological strand is

complemented with an even stronger belief that marriage is a social institution with ties to

both religion and family.

A similar ideological blend surfaced in interviews with pairs who had participated in a

couple-initiated renewal ceremony. Illustrative is this excerpt from a couple interview with

a wife (aged 45) and a husband (aged 48) who had been married for 26 years at the time of

the interview:

BAXTER AND BRAITHWAITE, SOUTHERN C OMMUNICATION J OURNAL 67 (2002)

I: What has going through this [renewal ceremony] meant to you?

W: Probably first and foremost being able to express our love to each other in

front of a group. . . . Being able to say with everybody there that marriage

can be wonderful if you let it be.

I: What did it mean to you?

H: I think two or three things. One being that it gave us an opportunity for peo-

ple to visually see and hear our love for each other. And what we tried to

stress in that was that “nothing in this world that is worth anything comes

easy.” Our relationship over the years was nothing magical, it was because

we were dedicated to one another. And committed to one another. . . . And,

so, that was probably one of the most meaningful things to me. Probably,

just being able to be with our friends, our family. . . . And not just in the

wedding ceremony, but in seeing Gloria’s [his wife’s] dedication to all of it,

and uh, it means a lot to me. (#20, 12, 495–522)

Both members of this couple noted that they felt love for their partner, but this theme was

embedded in statements that indicated that the significance of the renewal ceremony

rested with its public nature and the opportunity to be with others and have them hear t h e

pair’s expression of their love.

Unlike the cultural conversation discussed by Bellah et al. (1985), in which the private,

self-focused marriage occupies the centripetal center against the more marginalized, cen-

trifugal voice of communality, our married informants described a reversal of these two

ideological voices. That is, although marriage comprises both individualistic and commu-

nal dimensions, it is the public, communally embedded marriage that our informants

sought to emphasize in the enactment of their respective renewal performances. The con-

densed cultural conversation of these ritual performances captured a centripetal voice of

communally centered marriage alongside a more muted, centrifugal voice of individually-

centered marriage. Thus, in stepping outside the everyday doing of marriage to reflect

upon it, our informants used their marriage renewal performances to make a cultural state-

ment about marriage as constituted fundamentally through a communal process and only

secondarily through negotiation by their individual selves. Given that our interviews evi-

denced both ideological strands, we will turn to a detailed discussion of how each ideology

contributed to the significance and meaning of the marriage renewal ritual among our in-

formants.

The marriage of moral/social community

This ideology of marriage was evident in three themes that surfaced in the interviews: ac-

countability to others, embeddedness in communal webs, and the expectation of perma-

nence. We will discuss each separately.

First, our informants discussed their marriage renewal vows as occasions in which the

public accountability of marriage was emphasized. Two kinds of public accountability

were evident. In one kind of public accountability, informants emphasized that the pub lic

nature of their renewal vows was important to them because it underscored their belief

BAXTER AND BRAITHWAITE, SOUTHERN C OMMUNICATION J OURNAL 67 (2002)

that the commitment of marriage was a public act of moral declaration. An audience func-

tioned as witnesses of this declaration, making the parties accountable for their vows of

renewal. As one 37-year-old male informant expressed to us about the mass ceremony in

which his 12-year marriage was honored:

An important aspect of wedding ceremonies is the witnesses. That’s why you

have a, a ceremony is to have witnesses. . . . You can be romantic, recite your

vows to each other on Valentine’s Day or something like that, but that idea of

having witnesses is an important one, I think. . . . It just gives you greater ac-

countability. I mean, uh, vows are not easy to keep [laughs] without people keep-

ing you accountable, and you being impressed yourselves of the significance of

it. It’s not like promising to be at dinner at six o’clock, you know! (#7, 11, 115–134)

To this informant, the private, romantic meaning of a marriage could be enacted in private,

between the partners. The public ceremony functioned as an accountability mechanism.

The same point was made by this 52-year-old woman about the couple-initiated ceremony

to celebrate their 25th anniversary: “[The original wedding] was standing up in front of

God and everybody and declaring it that gave it a little extra solemnity and a little extra

commitment. And so we insisted on that for this [renewal ceremony]” (#22, 6, 224–230).

The significance of having a marriage renewal ceremony w as that it recognized the im-

portant public accountability of commitment.

The second way in which a theme of public accountability emerged in our transcripts

was in the expressed obligation our informants felt to provide a public model and living

proof of successful marriage for younger generations and for those in their social network

who were currently struggling with marriage. Couples often felt obligated to model a suc-

cessful marriage for the sake of their children, as this 58-year-old female informant noted

about her couple-initiated ceremony to celebrate their 25th anniversary:

I think that it brought to the minds of the children that Mom and Dad have s t r ug-

gled and they are here, we can do it too. I noticed that my oldest son has had

problems with his marriage, this is his third one. . . . My oldest daughter also had

problems with hers. . . . I think that maybe seeing that it [marriage] can be good

with struggles made them a little more committed to trying harder. (#19, 10, 22–38)

A second theme through which the ideology of moral/social community was given

voice was a construction of marriage as part of a larger, communal web. To our informants,

the success of their marriages was in large measure because of the support that ot her s pro-

vided to their marriage. A 45-year-old female informant expressed an example of t his

theme during a couple interview about their couple-initiated ceremony in honor of their

25th anniversary:

We didn’t focus just on us . . . we focused more on others. . . . We w anted to

honor our families, so our pastor had Frank’s [her spouse] mom stand and give

tribute to her. She and Frank’s dad had been married 54 years. They gave tr ibute

BAXTER AND BRAITHWAITE, SOUTHERN C OMMUNICATION J OURNAL 67 (2002)

to my mom and dad who were there; they had been married 54 years. W e ga v e

flowers to our families. And then we had a special song to all of our friends and

family. . . . We gave special tribute to them, to the group, w hile they played a

special song for them. And shook hands with them and gave our love to them,

saying “thank you for being there to support us during the ups and downs.” And

so it was kind of a tribute to everybody. (#20, 11, 92–104)

Thus, to this informant, and to many others, the renewal ceremony was an occasion to pay

homage to friends and family because the success of her and her husband’s marriage was

in large measure attributable to connections with family and friends and the support they

provided to the couple.

Various artifacts were also used by our informants in their renewal ceremonies as ways

to symbolically establish links with others, thereby emphasizing that marriage was en-

meshed in a web of significant others. Artifacts represented a way to reflect the past con-

tributions of members of the couple’s network, most often family members, to the success

of the marriage. For example, in one ceremony, the wife rewrote and recited a poem her

father had taught her. At another renewal event, for the couple’s 40th anniversary, the pair

used and prominently displayed a silver coffee serving set that their son had brought them

from Vietnam on their 25th anniversary. Another couple talked about the special dress the

wife w ore for the renewal event. She had gone shopping for the dress with her daughter

and found a dress that cost over $100, but she would not buy it because it was much m or e

expensive than any dress she had ever owned. The daughter talked to her father, who went

down and bought it for his wife. This dress was dubbed in the family “the anniversary

dress,” and subsequently other women in the family also had worn the dress on special

occasions. This dress became an artifact of the renewal event that has been shared, literally

as well as symbolically, by members of the family, thereby retaining a special meaning for

the entire family.

The third theme in which the marriage of moral/social community was evident was an

expectation of permanence. Our informants viewed commitment as a lifelong pr om is e t o

stay in the marriage, not a fair-weather declaration to be abandoned when maintaining the

relationship became effortful. To our informants, the renewal ceremony was an occasion

to declare to themselves and to others their conception of marriage as a permanent under-

taking. As one 58-year-old male informant expressed about their couple-initiated cere-

mony to honor their 30th anniversary:

It is not something that you go into as a trial-and-error thing. It’s something that

is a lifetime commitment. . . . I think our children saw us in a different light. [The

ceremony] showed a commitment, we are not just Mom and Dad. (#15, 11, 29–51)

This theme is also apparent in several of the excerpts we have quoted above.

In sum, our informants drew upon the ideology of moral/social community in making

sense of their marriage renewal vows. The ceremony was meaningful because it con-

structed marriage as a publicly accountable institution, embedded in a communal web of

friends and family, with the expectation and obligation of lifelong commitment. In fa ct ,

BAXTER AND BRAITHWAITE, SOUTHERN C OMMUNICATION J OURNAL 67 (2002)

this ideology emerged as the more dominant one, and the ideology of utilitarian/ex pres-

sive individualism was more muted.

The marriage of utilitarian/expressive individualism

Although our informants viewed marriage first and foremost as a social institution, they

also drew upon themes of intimacy and love, freedom of choice, and self-growth in maki n g

sense of the meaningfulness of their marriage renewal vows. These themes are prominent

semantic strands in the cultural ideology of utilitarian/expressive individualism.

In part, the marriage renewal vow ceremonies were important to our informants be-

cause they were occasions in which the spouses could express and realize their love for

one another. As one 50-year-old female informant told us about the mass ceremony in

which she and her husband of 20 years participated:

At one moment, when they actually went through the ceremony, and, and it, it

flashed, it was like flashback. When I looked at him, I knew that love was still

there [crying]. It’s so neat. I mean, there’s times in your marriage before you

could just kill ’em, and I’m sure they do you . . . but there’s still that, it’s st ill

there. That was the most remarkable. (#12, 5, 78–84)

To our informants, the renewal vow s were important as private expressions and realiza-

tions of love and intimacy between the spouses. In fact, our informants often viewed the

renewal ceremony as more about the expression of love than was the original wedding,

which had a legal function of creating a marriage unit in the eyes of the law. Put simply,

our informant married couples were still in love and wanted to express that to each other

in a special way afforded by the renewal of vow s ceremony.

The renewal ceremony not only allowed an expression of love but an opportunity to

rejuvenate love. As one 42-year-old wife reported about the couple-initiated ceremony in

honor of her marriage of 9 years:

It’s [love for partner] not the same as it was in ’83, but that doesn’t mean that we

can’t recognize it and nurture it. I think it’s real easy for me to take, uh, take it

for granted and, it’s not something I want to take for granted. . . . [The ceremony]

makes it special, keeps it alive, makes it flourish. (#4, 11, 488–494)

In the everyday life of conducting a marriage, love can be taken for granted and thereby

lose its spark. To our informants, the liminal act of suspending business as usual for pur-

poses of expressing love for partner functioned to revitalize that love.

Before w e began the interviews, we wondered if the vows themselves would be a very

important part of the ceremony. We anticipated hearing stories of how couples negotiated

the words of vows and that copies of the text of the vows would be the most treasured

memory coming from the ritual for the couples. However, with few exceptions, couples

did not recall much of the text of their renew al vows. Most of the couples had made sug-

gestions to the presiding official when they met before the ceremony, but then left it to the

BAXTER AND BRAITHWAITE, SOUTHERN C OMMUNICATION J OURNAL 67 (2002)

official to prepare the vows. Except for videotapes of the ceremony, only a few of the cou-

ples could produce the actual vows they had made. Most informants had a vague recollec-

tion that they had recited traditional wedding vows, slightly altered for the renewal

ceremony. Thus, for our informants, the expression of love for partner was not housed in

the wording of the vows per se, but more in the speech art of renewing the vows. Thus, love

for partner was expressed in the very act of participation in the ceremony.

The renewal ceremony was also significant because it was a choice-point for couples. In

freely electing to renew their vows, our informants felt that they were emphasizing t h e

voluntary nature of commitment. As one 36-year old woman told us about her planned

couple-initiated ceremony for her 16-year old marriage:

We want it to be clear to us and to other people that we choose to stay married.

Because w e didn’t feel like the first w edding we chose freely. We said we did . . .

but inside I think that we both felt we had to. And this time we want to be what

we really freely choose. (#17, 9, 220–227)

On its face, the obligations of permanence attached to the social institution of marriage

appear to fly in the face of freedom of choice. However, our informants were able to blend

these two ideological strands easily. The details of what was meant by commitment and

the details of conducting married life on an everyday basis were up to the partners. The

everyday doing of commitment w as the site of freedom of choice for a couple; that is, in

choosing to conduct a renewal ceremony, couples underscored that marriage was an exer-

cise in freedom. In choosing to say their initial vows, couples further emphasized marriage

as a choice-making enterprise. In choosing the details of the ceremony and the reception

(e.g., what to wear, whom to invite, what kind of flowers to display, what food to eat, what

music to play), couples constructed a sense that marriage was a series of choice-points at

the detailed level of its enactment. The marriage renewal ceremony was also meaningful

to our informants because it was an occasion to celebrate individual growth and change in

the spouses’ selves and in their marriage. One 42-year-old female informant expressed this

theme about her couple-initiated ceremony to honor her 9-year marriage:

I know we’re not the same married couple as w hen we first got married. You

know, if we were, I’d have some serious doubts about us . . . I’ve seen remarkable

growth in both of us as individuals and as a couple. And we want to recognize

that growth and change. (#4,11, 481–486)

To this informant, marriage is a process of ongoing change for the partners. The renewal

ceremony was a way in which parties could pay homage to their individual and j oint

growth.

In addition to celebrating growth in the spouses, and in their marriage, the process of

planning and executing the renewal of vows ceremony also afforded an opportunity for

self-reflection between the spouses, and thus growth in the relationship. One 58-year-old

male informant captured this theme in the following way in describing the couple-initiated

ceremony in honor of his and his wife’s 30th anniversary:

BAXTER AND BRAITHWAITE, SOUTHERN C OMMUNICATION J OURNAL 67 (2002)

It’s not only the ceremony but it’s the process that we’ve been going through

before and now since we decided to actually do this [renew marital vow s]. Now,

it’s the whole process of learning who we are in relationship to each other. I mean

you know that you’re married and you kind of go on day-to-day—it’s like you

don’t really think about it or talk about it. Sometimes those things are taboo; you

know it’s there but you don’t talk about it. [In renewing vows], we’re for cin g

ourselves to say “what is my commitment to you?” (#11, 11, 604–612)

The renewal ceremony was important to this informant because it provided a liminal mo-

ment in the marriage—an occasion where the parties could reflect on w hat their marriage

meant to each partner, thereby affording an occasion for individual self-reflection and pos-

sible growth.

In sum, laced within the discourse of marriage as a social institution was another im age

of marriage, a view of marriage as a private haven for the partners in which they sh ould

nurture love for one another, make their own unique choices in how to conduct the details

of life together, and nurture growth and change. These themes are the watchwords of the

utilitarian/expressive individualism ideology articulated by Bellah and his colleagues (1985).

Discussion

The marriage renewal vow ceremony is a richly textured ritual that allows married coup les

to weave together two different idealizations of marriage. Our informants found meaning

in the ceremony because it celebrated both the public marriage of institutional obligation

and accountability and the private marriage of two expressive selves. The ritual’s ability

to blend these two ideological strands may account for why it appears to be enacted with

increasing frequency in U.S. society (Braithwaite & Baxter, 1995).

Although both Shotter (1993) and Bellah et al. (1985) frame the public and private ideo-

logies of marriage as a dilemma between competing choices, most of our informants ap-

peared to experience a complementary interweaving of these two perspectives in their

construction of marriage. Complementarity, rather than competition between these two

ideologies, was particularly evident for the theme of love and intimacy from the ideology

of utilitarian/expressive individualism, and the theme of communal webs from the ideol-

ogy of moral/social community. That is, love between partners was nourished by the secu-

rity and support afforded by the communal w eb of friends and family that surrounded the

pair.

The central role of other persons to the marital relationship has been captured in a “con-

voy model” of personal relationships. In this model “individuals move through their life-

times surrounded by people who are close and important to them and who have a critical

influence on their life and well-being” (Antonucci & Akiyama, 1996, p. 356). Although this

model includes the spouse as a central part of one’s convoy, the convoy also includes fam-

ily members and friends because these relationships can greatly enhance the marital r ela-

tionship. For example, Wright (1989) describes a complementary relationship between

marital, family, and friendship roles. This is especially true for women because research

BAXTER AND BRAITHWAITE, SOUTHERN C OMMUNICATION J OURNAL 67 (2002)

indicates that w omen are able to communicate more effectively with their husbands b e-

cause of the social support derived from their friendship relationships (Rubin, 1986). For

married couples, their social relationships outside of the marriage become a “supporting

chorus” for the marriage (Berger & Kellner, 1964), endorsing their view of the world as a

married couple (Nussbaum, Pecchioni, Robinson, & Thompson, 2000).

Complementarity, rather than competition between ideologies, is also apparent for the

themes of choice and public modeling via the vow renewal ritual. Modeling a successful

marriage was viewed by our informants as important because it served as a teaching mech-

anism, instructing others, particularly their children, on making the “right choices” in their

marriage. Our informants stated that the renewal ceremony displayed for the benefit of

others what the successful choices were that led to a long-lived marriage. This included

recognizing the role played by others, as well as the significance of making a commitment

to a permanent union, and so forth.

Although our findings provide clear support for the two ideologies of marriage ar t icu-

lated by Bellah and colleagues (1985), our findings challenge their assertion that the ideol-

ogy of utilitarian/expressive individualism is given dominance. Among our informants,

we heard instead a construction of marriage as first and foremost a social institution, a

view more sympathetic to the ideology of moral/social community. What could account

for this apparent centripetal repositioning? It is possible that the sample of informants for

this study is somehow not representative of the typical American who marries in that the

reversal of prominence of the two ideologies might reflect our reliance on persons who

hold a particularly traditional view of marriage. However, other possibilities may also ac-

count for this centripetal-centrifugal reversal of ideologies.

One possibility is that the vow renewal ritual may function in a compensatory manner.

Married couples may privilege the ideology of utilitarian/expressive individualism i n t heir

everyday lives, and this ritual may be a rare occasion to recognize the social side of mar-

riage. Couples may have emphasized the social ideology over individualism to compen-

sate for its secondary place in the everyday enactment of marriage. The vow renew al ritual

might be an important opportunity to reflect and focus on something very important to

them, and their marriage, that is not stressed in public discourse about marriage. Future

research needs to examine how ideological blending is enacted in everyday married life.

Another possibility that could account for the salience of the ideology of moral/ social

community is the density of long-term marriages in our sample. Eleven of the 16 marriages

represented in our sample had lasted at least 20 years. Sillars and Wilmot (1989) point out

that marriage may service a different set of needs and values in early as opposed to later

life: “Early marriage calls for flexibility, empathy, supportiveness and problem solving

skill because this is a period when many new roles and responsibilities are acquired, sep-

arate identities are reconciled, and family policies are established” (p. 240). Certainly this

analysis w ould lead one to expect an expressive view of marriage in early married life. In

contrast, in later marriages many of the difficult adjustments in the relationship have been

resolved or otherwise put aside (Zeitlow & Sillars, 1988). At this stage of marital life, although

intimacy is still important, “attachment may substitute for attraction” and partners (and

others) value the relationship for what it has been and produced, rather than what it will

BAXTER AND BRAITHWAITE, SOUTHERN C OMMUNICATION J OURNAL 67 (2002)

become (Sillars & Wilmot 1989, p. 240). Compared with earlier marriages, marital satisfac-

tion in later marriages may be more strongly linked to people outside of the marital dyad,

particularly children, grandchildren, and siblings. We did not notice any thematic differ-

ences betw een these marriages and those of shorter length, but our sample size was too

small to allow for meaningful group comparisons between early and later marriages. This

question awaits future research.

We do not know how these two ideologies of marriage will play out in the future, as

today’s younger cohort groups age. Scholars predict that marriages of the current older

cohort groups may be different from those who follow them, as fewer may be married,

fewer may have children with whom they are close, and as the stigma surrounding div orce

and living outside of marital bonds decreases further (Goldscheider, 1990). Dickson (1995)

and others stress the importance of historical context and cohort on the way people expe-

rience and enact relationships.

Clearly, vow renewal rituals are structured to recognize the past and present of marital

relationships, as the couple honors those who were with them in the past and those w ho

support the relationship in the present. The ritual also speaks to the future as well, b ec a us e

couples renewing their vows produced from the event permanent artifacts that they would

leave future generations, such as photo albums, videos, and rings made for the ceremony.

In addition, in the more immediate future, family and friends might be important, if the

renewal vow enactors need assistance from caregivers or become w idowed. Antonucci and

Akiyama (1996) emphasize that people should be encouraged at all stages of life to develop

and maintain a high quality convoy of family and friendship relationships, and they em-

phasize the importance of these relationships in later life.

This study, like any exploratory study, is not without weaknesses. First, its small sample

size precludes not only group comparisons based on length of marriage but a comparison

of the mass ceremony versus the couple-initiated ceremony. We did not notice any ideo-

logical differences in these two forms of renewal rituals in our data set, but we had too few

instances of the mass ceremony in particular to allow for a meaningful comparison. Sec-

ond, because of scheduling difficulties, we w ere able to have couple interviews with only

a portion of our informants. We found these interviews particularly insightful because they

allowed husbands and wives to provide us with their joint perspective on marriage and

on their renewal vow ceremony. Future research should solicit couple-level data because

it affords us better insight into a couple’s joint construction of the social reality of their

marriage than does individual-level data.

Third, our efforts to attain theoretical sensitivity could have benefited from a member-

checking procedure (Erlandson et al., 1993), in which we would have gone back to our

informants to determine whether the relative dominance of the two ideologies w e identi-

fied in their discourse rang true with their experiences with the vow renewal ceremony.

Fourth, the interview data could usefully be complemented w ith participant ob s er vation

data gathered by attending actual renewal ceremonies. Our data set was based on retro-

spective accounts of ritual performance, not the performance per se.

Our study provides the impetus for scholars to continue to explore the ideologies that

guide our views of marriage, as well as to research and theorize about marriage. Our anal-

BAXTER AND BRAITHWAITE, SOUTHERN C OMMUNICATION J OURNAL 67 (2002)

ysis demonstrates the ability of the vow renewal ritual to highlight the importance of mar-

riage, both as a union of two expressive selves and as institutional obligation and account-

ability. One starting place would be to compare vow renewals with the ideologies of

marriage represented in other rituals, such as the ritual of original weddings. A goal would

be to examine whether original w edding rituals speak more powerfully to expressive in-

dividualism, representing the needs and values of couples at the early stage of married

life, where later-life rituals, such as the vow renewal, would speak to marriage as social

community, thus highlighting different needs and values of marriage at different stages of

life.

Acknowledgments – Le slie A. Ba xte r is the F. We ndell Mille r Dis tinguis he d Profe ssor of Communi-

cation Studies at the University of Iowa; Dawn O. Bra ithwaite is a Professor of Communication S tud-

ies at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. A prior ve rsion of this study was presented at the annual

meeting of the Speech Communication Association, San Antonio, Texas. The authors would like to

thank research assistants Jeannette Biddle a nd Ke lly She rrill W ard for the ir as s istance in the data

colle ction s ta ge of this project.

Notes

1. For all quotations, the three numbers in parentheses refer respectively to the interview number,

the page number, and the line number(s).

2. Gloria is a pseudonym. We have e mployed pseudonyms in all e xce rpts, a s ne eded.

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