Eve Tushnet writes about AA, alcoholism, and broken promises.

Phil Christman explores the courtship of three monogamous animal couples.

Norann Voll, a Bruderhof member in Australia, took a vow of obedience that included the promise to go anywhere the church needed her.

Sister Carino Hodder says the call to chastity applies just as much to spouses and to single people looking for romance as it does to consecrated religious.

Andreas Knapp, a member of the Little Brothers of the Gospel says wealth is not only an unwieldy burden, but is incompatible with love of neighbor.

Dori Moody relates the story of her grandparents marriage. Even though they separated, they remained faithful to one another.

Randall Gauger, a Bruderhof pastor, discusses how lifelong vows make mutual faithfulness possible.

Caitrin Keiper writes of the vows in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables that brokenness does not erase the hope in any person when the cycle of retribution breaks for grace.

Kelsey Osgood, an Orthodox Jew, writes that we live in an age that glorifies self-care, but any attempt to deny oneself something pleasurable is suspect.

Susannah talks with Zohar Atkins, a rabbi and philosopher, about vows in Nietzsche, in other philosophers, and in the Jewish theological tradition.

Are vows the origin of private conscience and thus the origin of secularism? Can human vows provide the kind of transcendence and eternity that even existentialists seek? Is it presumptuous to take a vow?

Then, Susannah and Peter discuss what they’ve learned from editing the Vows issue of the magazine and doing the Vows season of the podcast.

After that, they take listener questions – is it wrong to vow at all? How can we ensure that vows are made in love? And what are the hosts’ favorite cooking spices?