Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

“I Do” Again: The Relational Dialectics Of Renewing Marriage Vows, Dawn O. Braithwaite, Leslie A. Baxter

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This study provides descriptive insight into the dialectical themes of one public relationship ritual in modern US society, the renewal of marital vows between spouses. Interpretive analyses of in-depth interview data revealed that this ritual allows spouses to manage three underlying dialectical contradictions: private-public, stability-change, and conventionality-uniqueness.