The subject of Vassos Argyrou's study is modernization, as reflected in the changing nature of wedding celebrations in Cyprus over two generations. He argues that modernization is not a process that makes a society "modern" but a legitimizing discourse. It is an idiom that Greek Cypriots employ to represent, and contest, relationships between social classes, old and young, men and women, the city and the village.

It is also the way in which they conceptualize, and submit to, the symbolic domination of Europe.