our wedding

INTERCULTURAL MARRIAGES: Is My Way the Right Way?

Intercultural marriage adds an extra set of dynamics to relationships. Regardless of how those differing cultures met to love one another, the desire to marry comes with a need to merge two cultures into one. Many questions arise. Will our families understand? What about spousal roles? What differences will be encountered with food and meal preparation?Recently,we created a survey questionnaire about intercultural marriage and asked many such couples to respond to some of the positives and negatives within an intercultural marriage. The answers were eye-opening and helpful.

Probably one of the biggest assumptions made within marriage is that the way we do things is the correct way. After all, “My family has always done it this way and it works quite well.” This same assumption is found within intercultural marriages, but it’s magnified.

Assumptions about how we live come with each culture. All of our life experiences through family and cultural background teach us how to deal with life’s challenges. Within an intercultural marriage, many different assumptions will surface over time. We will formulate our opinions and make judgments based upon our world views. Initially, these judgments will be external or on the surface. In time, all of the internal areas will be exposed also. Often, this is how we begin to formulate our own prejudice against other cultures.

For example, there are banks in the United States and there are banks in New Zealand. Both banks serve a similar function, but in New Zealand you do not sign your checks to be cashed. Deposit slips are completed very differently as well. In the United States, one banking company will not cash another’s check unless you have an account with them. In New Zealand, the banks tend to work together. Neither banking system is wrong; however, to the spouse encountering a new and unfamiliar system, it may be a challenge. Then tendency to think, “The way we did it in my country was better,” will emerge quickly and frequently. Will we recognize it or try to hide it? This is the critical issue.

Another example of differences to think about is the medical arena. Medical services differ greatly from country to country. One country may have a national medicine provision,while other countries have very few doctors and distant or poor services. The United States has medical technology that many countries do not have, but it has a higher cost and a system that requires individuals to pay their own bills instead of the government. Will this present a problem for you? Consider this important medical question: Where will your children be born and why do you feel the way you do about this?

Other assumptions may be made in such areas as home decorating, the way money is handled, unfamiliar types of entertainment, differing degrees of acceptable openness in personal sharing, different understandings of extended family relationships, the celebration of unfamiliar holidays, differing views of romanticism, the use of free time and vacations and even the way children receive their educations. These areas are not meant to be all inclusive, but to give you a general idea about the assumptions we all have and would need to face in the event of an intercultural marriage.

Some of the negatives discovered by couples who are interculturally married can be quite varied. One wife confessed that her way of doing certain things drew a negative response from her spouse. For example, the way dishes are washed, the care of clothing or how the children are disciplined often varies from culture to culture. Marrying someone from an underdeveloped country and then bringing that person to the States may be shocking. The prosperity of North America can be incomprehensible. Likewise, the lack of what others may view as essentials can be equally shocking.

Feeling as though you are expected to be like the wives or husbands of the culture you married into can be a monumental hurdle to cross. cultural and social norms may be so diametrically opposed to your country of origin that you become emotionally confused. And inability to understand the perceived role is difficult enough, without the fact that you may not agree with the traditions.

Caution 1: Know Each Other’s Culture! With each of the couples we interviewed, several cautions kept emerging. One of the strongest was knowing each other’s culture. If at all possible, spend some time living in that culture before marriage. The minimum amount of time suggested was 2 or 3 months. While visiting your fiancé’s country of origin, it would be important to live with a local family as well as your fiancé’s family. This would enable you to experience firsthand the relationship differences within the family.

A word of caution: While you are picking up certain nuances, don’t think that all families of this culture operate this way. It would be like saying all North American or European families function in a similar way.

Caution 2: Be Accountable. The second area of strong concern communicated by various couples interviewed was being sure that you are called together. “There is a tendency not to listen to people and the concerns they express about your possibility of marrying someone of a different culture,” one spouse said. “It’s easy to begin thinking, ‘It’s us against them,’ and close yourselves to some very valuable input, confrontation and honest hesitation provoked by these loved ones.”

In time, the goal can become a desire to beat the odds, prove the hesitant ones wrong and press on ignorantly in order to make your point. Decide to be very accountable to your pastor, your parents and to those relationships you value. Listen to them. Do not shut them out and react by drawing closer to your fiance. Weigh their concerns and think through their questions.

Caution 3: Know What Both Cultures Value. In North American culture, there is a tendency to value things. In many other countries the tendency is to value extended family, the elderly, hospitality—a “what’s mine is yours” type of mentality. People become the primary concern; consequently, what people think of you is important. One husband mentioned that his culture is more formal and conservative, especially in dress. “My wife,” he explained, “is much more casual. In my country I wear long-sleeved dress shirts. They must be clean and pressed or people will judge my spouse as a lazy wife.”

Caution 4: Identify Adaptation Versus Core Value Changes. The final strong note of caution resulting from our survey concerned being aware of the difference between behavioral modification or adaptation and core value changes. It is possible, for example, for a Middle Eastern man to adapt behaviorally to U.S. culture and look like he is, indeed, fitting into it. His core values may not have changed; he is simply conforming on the outside to the expectations of others. Because there is no inward change, this same man in his country of origin would look like, sound like and think like a Middle Easterner.

Why? In his thinking he has not lied or deceived—just adapted. He can now be who he really is and perform according to what he has been taught by his family and culture. His unsuspecting wife finds herself living with a man whom she feels has made a radical about-face. She may feel trapped in a country and a culture with an unfamiliar person whom she thought she knew.

Accept and Appreciate Differences: Whether or not the values mentioned above are biblical is not the point, even though there will be times you may feel quite ready to argue that the way your culture did things is biblical. The point is that cultural differences exist, and you will be forced to face some of those mentioned and many that are not mentioned. If you choose to marry interculturally, you will need to learn to face cultural differences as a reality and not deny them.

Accepting and appreciating as many of the differences as you can will serve to enhance the marriage relationship. This experience is not to be viewed as all negative. The differences are something to embrace and value in one another. No two persons think alike or value the same things. You will need to give one another the freedom to be who you are and allow the Holy Spirit to mold the two cultures together. Rejoicing in the richness of your varied inheritances and learning from both is to be a joyous experience.

Mixed Marriages

Why Expats Marry Foreigners and Then What Happens


It seems that every few years my colleagues and I celebrate the marriage of one of our former students to a foreign national they met while studying abroad. Timing and common interests seem to be the primary factors that bring these couples together.

A U.S. Foreign Service officer once told me that meeting his wife while in training in Taiwan made perfect sense. He was in his late 20s, dating, and ready to find a lifetime partner. Being part of a community in which intercultural marriage is seen as perfectly logical and “going home to settle down” at odds with his career plans, courting his wife in Taiwan seemed to present no complications or impediments.

Common interests also play an important part in the decision to marry abroad, especially for expatriates who have spent years learning the culture and language. How many of us have returned home to realize that friends and family are unable to understand how we have been changed by our experiences and by the cultures in which we have been living?

Finding a community of people with similar experiences is not always easy. Most of us end up adjusting to or accepting our circumstances (sometimes with great difficulty) or seeking other chances to go abroad. Living with someone who has some understanding of these experiences may create a port in the storm for those of us who have been changed by our lives abroad.

Expatriates Naturally Bond

Expatriates are brought together by the common experience of being foreigners. In the international community in which I lived for many years in northeast China, American students and teachers dated Japanese, Korean, French, and Russian students and teachers. Every year we celebrated at least one engagement.

People living abroad are often themselves the products of intercultural marriages. (I know of one couple in which the African American man’s mother was an immigrant from Haiti while his girlfriend was ethnic Chinese from Vietnam whose family had immigrated to Switzerland. Another American student who dated a student from Japan was the granddaughter of a Chinese doctor who had married an American missionary.) As borders become easier to cross, intercultural marriages become much more common and acceptable than they once were.

Of course, many more relationships in our international community ended once the realization of the realities of returning home and trying to maintain long-distance relationships set in. Often the couple is not ready to make a long-term commitment when the challenges of trying to get back together somewhere in the world appear to be too great.

I know of at least two Japanese women whose parents threatened to disown them if they married American men. In one case, the couple married anyway. In the other, the woman returned to Japan. Her boyfriend received a letter from her uncle saying that she had been bitten by a poisonous snake and died.

The Practical Matters

Couples who find each other abroad often come down to earth when they start considering the reality of building lives together under complex circumstances. Working through the details of what the relatives will think, where they will live, and how they will arrange the paperwork becomes a test of fortitude and staying power.

In my own case, the Chinese marriage license was fairly easy to arrange, but U.S. officials kept pushing back our departure date with the piles of paperwork, fingerprinting, and other documentation required for an immigrant visa application. Some people have said that the process is designed to be slow to discourage shotgun weddings.

Deciding where to live can also be difficult. Flexibility and the willingness of at least one spouse to live as a foreigner or immigrant abroad can make things easier. My husband has experienced the convenience, privacy, and mobility of American life as well as the frustrations of open discrimination. At this point the benefits of living in the U.S. outweigh the disadvantages, but we often discuss returning to Asia where I am the foreigner or moving to a third country where we both would be foreigners. Living in an area where diversity is common can make the move easier. Building a community of international friends also helps tremendously. If it’s financially feasible, yearly visits home can also help your spouse feel more in touch with family. Again, compromise and flexibility are key.

What to Watch Out For

When considering marriage abroad, think about the circumstances in which you met and fell in love and give yourself lots of time to see if it can last. Many vacation flings seem perfect at first but turn out to be impractical. I dated men whom I later discovered were more interested in a visa than a serious relationship. I know of many American men who imposed stereotypes of Asian female docility on their Asian girlfriends, then were shocked to realize that their wives expected to call the shots at home after marriage.

Even if family and friends on both sides of the marriage are accepting and supportive, you are bound to encounter naysayers who are sure your relationship will fail. An American friend of mine was told by her boss that “intercultural marriages just cannot work.” When she pointed out that her own marriage to her Chinese husband was happily in its third year, the boss said that she was in the “honeymoon stage.” Later she found out that his American son and German wife were struggling with their own marriage.

Statistically, intercultural and interracial marriages have a high rate of failure. But many succeed. When we look to older generations who dealt with a climate of greater disapproval and discrimination than we do today, we find keys to how to make these marriages work for a lifetime.

By Tamula Drumm

Type of people commomly attracted to Intercultural marriage

To begin the series on intercultural marriage, beginning with a discussion about who exactly tends to be most attracted to intercultural relationships/marriages in the first place seems like a good place to start. It’s certainly not for everyone, as mixed marriages are full of unique challenges that married people from the same culture may never face.
In Romano’s book “Intercultural Marriage,” she lists 5 common types of people who tend to be involved in intercultural relationships. The first type is the Romantic type: those who see people from other cultures as exotic, fascinating, and thrilling. These people may find people from their own culture boring and predictable, and thrive in the mystique of people from far away and foreign lands.

The second type is the Compensator. These people often feel like something is missing from their lives and believe they have found it in another person or culture, as they believe elements from that person/culture fulfills what is missing from their own. Romano notes that this type is found even in couples who marry from their own cultures, who are simply looking for someone to fulfill what they lacked growing up.

Rebels are slightly different from the compensators in that they dislike much about their own culture and are intent on finding someone from somewhere else. Sometimes they have a specific target culture in mind; other times they simply take whatever fate brings them.
Internationals, the next type of people drawn to intercultural marriage, are those who lived outside their native countries for most of their lives, and are typically children of missionaries, diplomats, military personnel, and so on. These people often do not feel as though they completely belong to one particular culture, as they tend to have been influenced by several cultures and therefore have a wide appreciation and love for differences.

The final category is comprised of Others. These people may not fit into their society and often are ostracized from it. Finding love in a different culture is a way to find a place to fit in and be accepted. Some of them are not considered to be attractive in their native culture, and have better luck in another culture. Others are part of a minority and find acceptance in another culture. Still others live in poverty and marry as a way to improve their quality of life.
After writing this, I began pondering which type I am, and it seems that I’m a mix of a few of them. Basically, I’ve always been different from everyone else, so I can relate to others who are different and appreciate differences more readily. I think that the world has so much to offer, so many different ideas and ways of thinking that can add a great deal to my life (making me a bit of a compensator).

I moved constantly growing up, so I was always the outsider, always the new kid, always unsure of the local habits… since I was mostly home schooled, that added a further dimension because I wasn’t really part of mainstream American culture (making me somewhat of an International type, even though all my moves were domestic). I recall one instance when I had just moved to a new town and was at lunch at school (I happened to actually go full time to public school that year). One kid decided to start pestering me with questions, asking me things like, “Are you a dork? Are you a retard? Are you a b*?” I repeatedly answered with a resounding, “NO!” Finally he asked, “Are you a virgin?” I was about to repeat my answer when the girl next to me grabbed my arm and whispered, “No, don’t say no! Say yes!” I wasn’t sure if I could trust her or not – why would I say yes?!?! I had no idea what it meant but it didn’t sound good… But after a few seconds of indecision, I gave in and said yes, and the kid, disappointed, gave up and left me alone. This is just one example of all the vocabulary that I was completely clueless about (college was eye opening, haha).

I also was a double major college and earned two master’s degrees (I have way too many interests), so I’ve never really fully fit in with my classmates either (in addition to being home schooled and not really having a hometown or childhood friends!). And to top it all off, now I’m a White, American Muslim convert, so my being different is now very visibly apparent, due to my hijab!

Alhamdilulah, I like it though; I enjoy being different, and would feel bored, unmotivated, and unchallenged if I weren’t with someone who wasn’t different as well. That I think, makes me a Romantic as well.

Out of these 5 common types, which one are you?

*Material taken from “Intercultural Marriage” by Dugan Romano

Inside Story - Parents' Perspective

Intercultural Interviews: Indian Parents’ Perspective 

Indian Culture, Intercultural Advice, Personal Story

This is the second part of the interview I held with my husband Aditya’s parents (you can find Part One here).  This part starts off with an interlude on Maa and Baba’s first meeting for their “semi-arranged” marriage, then continues on the topic of their first impressions of me. I finally got them to discuss some negatives: what they find difficult in having a non-Indian daughter-in-law and my (apparently) one fault. We also discussed some of the things they dislike about general American culture (as it relates to interpersonal relationships), and ended with some advice Maa and Baba have for intercultural couples, both generally and for those having some difficulty with Indian in-laws. Technical details: I transcribed the interview from a sound recording, and have only edited (in square brackets) for clarity or in keeping with Maa & Baba’s wishes for certain things to be “off the record”. My comments and notes post-transcription are in red.
Aditya: So what is that story that you were telling, of when Baba came to meet you?
Baba: That was our semi-arranged marriage!
Maa: Semi? Why “semi”? Absolutely arranged!
Baba: I saw her, and then I said okay. It was not arranged. So semi.
Maa: They put an advertisement in paper, that their son is not getting married for last ten years, they’re searching for daughter-in-law.
Baba: And my in-laws had a daughter who was not being married for ten years, said, “Okay, this is a right match!”
Maa: So, when they came, they didn’t tell me… Maybe my parents knew it, but I didn’t know that they were coming. So it was Sunday, and I had lot of hair… The whole week I had to go to college, so I didn’t wash my hair properly, because in India you can’t go with, uh, hair loose, you have to tie it up. Nowadays everything is gone, but that time it was there. So Sunday is my oil massaging day. So from top to bottom I used to apply oil.
Aditya: And Maa’s hair was down to her knees almost.
Maa: So, they came at three o’clock. And I took bath at twelve o’clock, I think. And I didn’t do shampoo also. And you can just imagine…
Baba: You know, that is why I got married to her, just because of her hair. Because I could not see anything else [to judge]!

Maa: And in India, when some girl is to, uh, be presented to her in-laws, they put on a lot of makeup, good saris, jewelry. But I was wearing a cotton sari, normal, because I didn’t know that they were coming. And my sister-in-laws, all, my parents, couldn’t [dress me up], because I am very strict about that. What I am, I am, there’s no makeup or something. And, I used to wear a bangle on my right hand. On my left hand, I used to wear a watch, a wrist-watch. I was at home, so I didn’t wear that also. And I met him like that!
GG: So, after you both met, did you discuss anything with each other?
Baba: Oh, yeah, we had a talk, between us. But I don’t think that it was, uh, like an examination. We just discussed what I feel, what did she feel that particular day? That’s all.
Maa: And then for food, at the restaurant, I didn’t take it. Because my mother told me, don’t go with anybody in the restaurant. So he was asking, “Are you hungry?” “No,” [I said].
Baba: So I sat down, I ate.
Maa: And he ate. When we came back to our home, from [movie] picture, I was telling my mother, “Give me some food, I am very hungry!” And he says, “Why didn’t you take?!” But how could I explain to him at that time?
Baba: That was my golden era.

I cannot imagine participating in the process of an arranged marriage – not that I think that they’re necessarily bad, but I just can’t picture what it would be like. Maa & Baba’s story of their first meeting was, therefore, quite enlightening as to some of the particulars. It all strikes me as something out of a Jane Austin novel.

GG: Okay, next question!
Baba: This is off the syllabus?
GG: Yes! So, did Aditya discuss marrying me with you?
Maa: Actually, I told him, you ought to get married. If you want to stay together, you ought to get married. That I told him.
Aditya: I mean, it was a variety of things. I think it started… I mean, obviously, after graduating, I moved to California, and I was looking for housing. We talked about it. And obviously I asked before I proposed to GG.
Maa: He didn’t ask, we discussed.
Aditya: Yeah, we discussed, it was more like that.
Maa: I said, if you want to be with her, then get married. You take the responsibility.

The idea of “responsibility” being a key part of a marriage is something I’m still noodling over. I’ll admit I’ve never thought of it in exactly those terms.

GG: Did your expectations of what you expect for a daughter-in-law change after Aditya said he was marrying me?
Aditya: What I think she is asking is, would you have different expectations if she was Indian?
Baba: No. And that should be in block capitals! Because I told you, my expectations for my daughter-in-law is the same whether it is Bhabi, Punjabi, or GG, American.

Bhabi is Aditya’s sister-in-law, i.e. Baba’s other daughter-in-law, for those just tuning in.

GG: So, what would you say was something I did that impressed you early on?
Maa: Everything.
Aditya: I think they spoke the highest of your card-playing ability.
GG: Card-playing?
Maa: Yeah, card-playing…
Baba: Not card-playing ability, the way you picked up the game. You know, pick-up is more important for playing the game. If your pick up is good, whether it is cards or studies, that is a quality, and of course, which I feel did impress on the first day.

Like Aditya, I come from a family where playing cards is a key part of family bonding. Aditya’s family’s game is Twenty-Nine, while my family plays a house version of Rummy and Oh Hell. Being decent at cards in both of our families – or at least enjoying playing cards – is a pretty important trait.

Maa: Even when we came back from the cabin, you cooked for us, a nice —
Baba: No, that was afterwards, but, my point is, the first day.
Maa: But, that time, they were not even engaged. So I liked it very much.

I made a spicy spagetti with chicken sausage (since Maa & Baba don’t eat beef or pork), a simple salad, and some out-of-the-box cake for the family at Aditya’s brother’s house while they were off on a day trip – really the meal was nothing special or complicated. I think Maa might have been secretly afraid that the rumors of Americans were true, and I couldn’t cook a thing.

Aditya: What about Bear?
GG: My dad’s dog.
Maa: Oh, very sweet, very nice.
Aditya: Baba was taking pictures all evening of Bear, there were more pictures of Bear than of GG.
Maa: I liked your mother, your grandmother… And I was very much impressed by you.

Maa met my materal grandmother while I was back in the Midwest, attending college. Granmama is a French-Candian immigrant, altho she’s lived in the US for most of her life.

GG: Anything I did that surprised you, or maybe somewhat negative? Something you thought was kind of odd?
Baba: Actually, should I tell you? Yes, I’m not so critical in little things. If otherwise it is acceptable, it is okay.
Maa: Yes, everybody has some problems.
Baba: If everybody is happy, I feel that it’s good enough. I don’t see things so critical.
GG: Okay, so, now, Aditya & I are married… What is the hardest part about having a non-Bengali, or non-Indian daughter-in-law?
Maa: From my side, the only difficulty is to express myself.
Baba: The language.
Maa: The language. The hardest thing. Nothing else.
Aditya: (sarcastically) GG has been working hard on her Hindi.

I think I have a mental block against learning languages. I’m still struggling to keep a schedule of regular studying – but hearing this was a big motivator.

Baba: I don’t… Whether you are GG, or someone else, it would have not have made much of difference if that person were the same as GG. Because I don’t, uh, everybody has some shortcoming, some strong points. So if I forget about the rest of the things, only see the small shortcomings here or there, mentally I will not be happy. And I do not want to be unhappy.
GG: But is there any difficulty you see, maybe in customs I don’t know, or…
Maa: Even I don’t know a lot of customs. So I don’t care for that.
GG: Or my family doesn’t have the same expectations that an Indian family would…
Maa: How would I know, how do we know what your family expectations? We don’t know…
Baba: One thing I know, GG, that I have got my own way of looking at things. I can lead my life in that lane/line/road – whatever you want to call it, but I cannot make others follow it. Therefore, yes, often things happen even between me and Maa, where we think differently, we argue, feel bad. Maa stops talking, I stop talking, but that is for only a few hours. Because we know that this has to be there, because [we are] two persons.
Similarly, if I am very critical to anybody, it is making an unhappy relation, and no one is happy by doing so. It is better if we can enjoy each other’s company, which is good, overlook the shortcomings, the things that we don’t like. If I know that GG does not like something, I would like to avoid those things as much as possible. I have not vacuumed your bedroom, because I have felt that you would not like disturbed whatever arrangement or, uh, disarrangement…

…that you have got. It is something like that, I have avoided it. But had it been my world, anybody could have done it for me and I would be happy. It is something like that. I try to avoid, don’t see things, which I feel may cause a bit of uneasiness between two persons.
GG: Is there anything that has been a positive, an unexpected thing that you’ve learned or experienced from having an American daughter-in-law?
Baba: Should I say now, one-to-one? Ready? Sure? I had the impression that Americans are generally very clean …that they keep things in order. But here, I have found…

And the truth comes out! This was the only critical thing I could get Maa & Baba to admit.

GG: It’s as much your son as me!
Aditya: GG, don’t even go there. You know, Thalith used to be our roommate, first when the three of us lived together, and then Thalith, GG, Ivan, and Claudia [lived together]. Thalith always used to make fun of us because the house was dirty and he used to blame me. But after I graduated, and he lived just with her, then he realized that what he actually saw there was her mess minus my cleaning up. You know, I visited GG twice, surprised her by arriving there before she expected me to be there. And the first day that I got there GG was sitting on the bed. And to get on the bed you could only put one step on the ground from the door. So you had to make a hop on one foot towards the bed, and then from that foot – you didn’t have space to put down the second foot – you had to hop off of that foot straight onto the bed. So everything you see is, always remember, that is GG minus my cleaning. Don’t say that it’s equally my fault.

While it is true that my college apartment room was that messy (I was working on my senior thesis!), it is complete falsehood that Aditya is a net benefit in the cleaning  department; during the same time period Aditya’s studio in California was nearly as messy. Really, we’re just messy (and busy) people.

Maa: What to say…
GG: It’s okay to say unflattering things. Whatever is on your mind.
Maa: Actually, I love you very much, all qualities, but the only thing, I can’t tolerate this much of untidiness. No, I think that, uh, you are since your childhood away from your mother, maybe that has affected you. Because only a mother can teach a daughter…
GG: My mother is also very messy.
Maa: Maybe, maybe because of that.
Maa: What you will do, please, you [GG] do the dusting and cleaning, let him do the vacuuming. Yes, do it together. That way you will enjoy it. Otherwise you’re doing it here, he’s doing it there. When Aditya told me that last time that Amy [the basement tenant] was here, that after Amy left, we’ll do the basement as the TV room or something like that. How is it possible that somebody is playing there, she’s playing here in her computer? This is not right. Whenever you’ll be at home, stay together. That is the first thing between husband and wife. You’ll see that in our house also, wherever Baba is I try to be, yes, because I don’t get to …
Baba: You see, when I want to avoid her, she’s always there! … Have you gone to church? Have you seen a dirty church?
GG: I don’t go to church.. I’ve only been a few times when I was little.
Baba: Okay, the ten times you’ve gone to church in your life, have you ever seen a dirty, stinking church?
GG: No…
Baba: Why? Cleanliness is next to godliness! And it is your house. You want that, you know, welcoming look. A house that is messy cannot be a happy house.

Point. Aditya and I really do need to stop living like we’re still in college.

GG: Okay, last two questions. Is there any advice that you would give to an American, or another Westerner who is dating an Indian, and is worried maybe that the parents won’t approve or anything like that?
Maa: Yes. There is something. Like [in] India, we are naturally very family-oriented. It is in our, uhh, in our heritage. But in Western country, people are so advanced, so educated, so independent, that sometimes, they feel, that…
Baba: They become islands.
Maa: Yes, they become islands. The space, their conception of personal space makes them very lonely, gradually. Everybody has some defects, some shortcomings – that is a girl also and a boy. Don’t look at the shortcomings. If you like somebody, if you love somebody, try to, both of, try to compromise on some points. If you can give only will you have something. Always if you – uh, not you, I mean general you – that giving away is much better than taking away.
Baba: No, actually, her question was actually if an Indian boy or a girl is dating an American boy or girl, what advice would be given to them. That is what she asked.
Maa: That is the advice! You have to give something to take something!
Baba: No, no, no… That you are talking about harmony in married life or in relationship. I would say that if they are dating an Indian boy, don’t just go by the boy. Unless he has decided to get out of the family altogether – cut off, I mean – not that [he is] in touch with them, they come and go… Otherwise, the boy should make it clear exactly how his parents or her parents would react to such a decision.
Like, you two are very nice. When you come to India, we [could have] decided no, you have to be like Indian girl, you have to put on a lot of oil, get up early in the morning, five o’clock, take a bath, go to temple, do puja, come back, then you go to the kitchen, cook food.
Maa: That type of family is still there in India.
Baba: A lot of them! The ones that – I have been reading your blog – most of the people they have got that type of problem when they go abroad, to their in-laws place. Therefore, it must be absolutely clear in mind [of the couple] what the expectations [are] at the other end. And if it is so, they should not go to India at all. Because a lot of disharmony would be created on such visits. And as far as we are concerned, as I told you, we are much more liberal, we know and we have got faith on our children, and things are different. I don’t think that one can, uh, judge parents just by seeing our family.
Maa: Even uh, Indian girls get lots of problems.
Baba: Indian girls get problems at their in-laws place because the culture, the practices are different.
GG: Would you suggest for a couple in that situation, that they just go along with the parents, or they say “no, we aren’t going to do that. She will not be getting up at five am”? Or some sort of compromise?
Baba: No, no, I would say if they’re going to live in US they should live like in US. They cannot live in US as [in] India. If you are going to live in India, live like India[ns]. You should not change your lifestyle because you are in a different country [for a short visit], you better live the style of the country [that] you live in.
GG: Anything else you want to share?
Maa: No, I told you that space is very…
Baba: Space should not make–
Maa: Make a man lonely.
Baba: No. That should not, I would say, divide a couple.
Aditya: I think it’s all about, when it comes to intercultural relationships, or really any relationship, it’s all about setting expectations. Like you should never get to the point where there is, like… In most Indian families parents are part of the married family. And you should never get to the point where those stakeholders are not on the same page.
Baba: That’s what I’m saying. And once – often courtship, like salesmanship – often the boy or the girl will tell little bit of half-truth. They will tell the facts just to impress, or hide things that maybe one [will] realize when you go to India. So that should be quite clear, how it is like at the other end. Like earlier, people used to get married, not to Americans, but a lot of people used to get married to the European girls, mainly British. And most of these people are sufficiently moneyed, but they were not like Rajas. But they used to give the impression that they were like small Rajas. And after the wedding they used to go, they used to find that things are not like what they heard during their courtship, and they had a lot of trouble during those days. The same way that I feel that one should be quite truthful, and put both sides on the right side of the picture, and then decide.
Maa: And husband and wife relationship should very, very based on honesty.

From www.gorigirl.com 

And that was the end of the interview.

Broken Traditions? Intercultural Marriage and Cultural Continuity

From the website www.gorigirl.com

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As an Indian in the USA; the only reason I would not want to marry a local is to not “lose” my own traditions and culture. Minds meeting , and matching interests and hearts are more important, but certainly , coming from an old and rich tradition, one would want to preserve it by having a completely Indian family, no? Thoughts?

It seems to me that there are several issues in play here, some of which Aditya and I discussed in the comments section when Lf first wrote out his comment (do check it out).

1. What is meant by cultural continuity? Is it something we should value, and if so, why? Does intercultural marriage (which often leads to Third Culture Kids) automatically mean that the cultures of the parents is ending?
2. What does it mean to say that India has an “old and rich tradition” (compared, presumably, against America or other Western cultures’ younger and poorer traditions)? Is it something we should value? What exactly do we mean by tradition, anyways?
3. What sort of culture – or cultures – do we want to have in our own lives? For those of us in intercultural relationships, what (if anything) are we losing by not creating a monocultural family? Will our lives be richer for it? Poorer? What about extended families?

Well, that’s a lot of questions! Enough for a book or three, certainly, so I’ll just give a simplified sketch of my own views on this matter, than open it up to the rest of you.

What is cultural continuity?

Let’s get one thing straight: cultures – all cultures – are constantly changing. And by culture here, I mean “the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes a society” – i.e. culture is the sum of all learned human behaviors in a particular society. What one generation learns from the previous will change as a society adapts to different conditions. The rate of the change that a culture goes through will generally vary based on the internal and external conditions or pressures a society faces, such as technological innovation, changing resources, and contact with other cultures.

For example, most Americans today would not be able to survive for very long in the wild, but the pioneers in the early days of our nation certainly could and did. As “frontier America” transformed into towns and cities knowing how to live off the land became a less important skill than those that allowed you to work in an office or factory in town.

So what is cultural continuity, if all cultures are constantly in a state of flux? Well, while everything in a culture can change, certain societal structures and beliefs – often embedded in religion or religious belief itself – are resistant to change and experience it more slowly. Hinduism in India, and the caste system which has become entwined to some extent with Hinduism, are both good examples of long-standing cultural traditions. But even they have changed over time to stay relevant, as my husband, Aditya, mentioned in his original response to Lurker frequent:

The survival of traditions is in being able to remain relevant with changing times. Even following Hindu traditions & scriptures, you can see clear evidence of the evolution of Hinduism when it responds to new “challengers” like Buddhism (Bhagavad Gita), Islam (Vedanta revival) and Christianity (Vivekananda).

So it’s not that culture continuity requires that a culture stays the same – that’s impossible – just that certain central aspects of a culture, such as particular beliefs or traditions, remain. To return to the example of “living off the land” in the US, while most Americans can’t survive out in the wild, there remains an ethos of individuality in American culture: a belief that a person should be able to stand on his own two feet without help from others or the government, just as pioneers were required to do.

Should we value cultural continuity?

I personally think that a part of the human mind craves traditions, rituals, and continuity, although this need is expressed to a greater or lesser extent in individuals. So, yes – to some degree cultural continuity is a desirable feature to have, both in society at large and in our individual lives. That being said, it isn’t the end all and be all: “tradition for tradition’s sake” is an argument easily overrode by more pressing “goods” such as freedom of choice, happiness, justice, and so forth. By that I mean that traditions cannot justify actions that hurt people or deny them their basic human rights.

As Aditya said in his comment:

I do think that the argument (or preserving traditions) are well intentioned, but the fact of the matter is that traditions must be revisited constantly to remain relevant. If we froze our traditions as they were in the 16th century, we’d still have women locked in the kitchen.
Unfortunately, this argument is also being made all over the world today to deny basic human rights to minorities and oppressed groups… from the denial of political rights to women, to outlawing gay marriage, the mantra of “this is not how it has always been” has become the central “argument” against progress of society.

Leaving aside the moral argument, which I hope all of you understand without my expanding upon it, following some traditions in the modern age is simply irrational. Traditions, after all, were formed to help societies function well – but societies today don’t exactly look like (or require the same things) as they did when these traditions were developed. Consider, for example, the traditionally arranged economy (the Indian caste system is one version of this), where a child follows in the work of his father. This system only functions as a good tradition in societies where

1. The work doesn’t change much from one generation to another.  Otherwise, there’s no point in having the child learn a skill at the knee of his father that will be antiquated by the time child is old enough to enter the workforce, and
2. The work isn’t specialized enough that only some people have the particular skill set, mental abilities, and personality to do it well. Otherwise children will be trained from childhood to do a job that they aren’t well-suited for – there’s no reason to expect my future kids will rock out as product managers just because Aditya does.

In today’s economy, neither of these points holds true, and thus the traditionally-arranged economy should be abandoned purely on utility grounds – a society that practices it won’t do as well as a society that doesn’t.

So for a tradition to be continued today, it should:

1. be rational – actually help the society & people that practice it
2. be moral – not hurt individuals or their free practice of their basic human rights

With the increased pace of technological innovation today, many long-standing traditions have been ending, amid outcries from critics that capitalism or globalization or American cultural imperialism are ruining cultures left and right, leading to a homogenization of the world. This is largely bullshit.

Yes, societies around the world are becoming more similar – there is more of world-wide culture today than ever before. But subcultures and individuals’ choices within cultures are more diverse than ever before as well. People today have (more of) a choice of whether they want to follow a tradition that isn’t actually rational in today’s world – or one that violates people’s human rights, such as the caste system. Moreover, today we are able to witness some amazing creative efforts as people combine two traditions to make a completely new – and wonderful – tradition or art form. See, for example, my post on Michael Jackson and bhangra. (Now, while I’d like to move the focus back to intercultural relationships, if you’d like to read more on this topic I recommend starting off with economist Tyler Cowen’s article Creative Destruction, which can be found here as a word document.)

Intercultural marriage and creative destruction

Intercultural marriage is a perfect example of the creative destruction that, when successful, leads to both great innovation and happy, meaningful lives. Every marriage consists of the creation of a new family culture – but with intercultural marriages each individual is bringing a completely distinct culture and set of traditions to the table to be combined. Yes, there will almost certainly be fewer pieces of a Indian culture or Bengali culture in Aditya’s and my “family culture” than there would be if he had married another Indian – but we can choose to keep the worthwhile traditions while eliminating the rest.

 We can keep statues of the gods around the house to remind us of our values, we can play and watch cricket on the weekends, remember that our home is also the home of our family, and have lovely saris and Indian tunics in the closets. We can also keep the best of American traditions and culture. We celebrate a secular family Christmas with an exchange of presents, watch (too much) great tv programming that comes out of Hollywood, train our dogs following Western methods like crating, and have (fasionably) torn jeans in the dressers.

It takes effort to combine two cultures successfully, and a willing attitude to learn from both partners. But I personally feel the effort is more than paid back by the results. Is it worthwhile for everyone? Of course not! Intercultural relationships are hard work. (All relationships require hard work, of course, but there tend to be more difficult variables in an intercultural marriage than a monocultural one.)

If you really want all of the traditions you grew up with to be part of your adult life, then you should probably choose something other than an intercultural match, since that’s unlikely to happen in an intercultural marriage unless your partner is willing to give up all of his or her cultural traditions. Of course, given the speed of cultural and technological change, it’s unlikely that all of the traditions you grew up with will be a part of your adult life anyways. As Aditya said,

In the reality of the globalized world of today, intercultural relationships give us a glimpse of a future where the free flow of information and people have broken down meaningless antiquated boundaries.

Can there be love without passion?

A human being can fall in love with a tree if they want to. Love, in it's essence, seems to be about an internal admiration for someone or something. People can love the person they are with but not be visually passionate for them. You can love your best friend without wanting to jump on their bones. Passion on the other hand turns a visual admiration into an animal lust. To have passion for someone or something is to have an unquenchable appetite for that object of affection, whether it's a person, hobby, career or knickknack. To have passion is to give most of your energy to be consumed by another person or thing.

Having passion is diving deeper into the moment that the object of desire is present. Every day, in every city or town, every second and minute, someone is having passionate sex with someone they may not even know. Since that's possible, one might come to the perception that love is internal and passion lies in the external. Some people have also been in a situation in which they are dating or married to someone they love, because of convenience. Many couples get together with one mate assuming that even though they are not passionate about the person they met, maybe they can fall in love over time.

Passion seems to be nothing more than a novelty emotion exaggerated by romance novels and good movies. Even some actors get overwhelmed by the actions of passion written in script for the characters they play. Apart from the novelty of passion, there is the exception to the rule; there are individuals that have passion for one another person, but sometimes more than not, it turns out that one of them is an enabler or they both share a love for a certain drug or hobby. Most times, these meetings catch both individuals by surprise and convert a skeptic into a romantic.

While the lucky few find a passionate lover, average love seems to be based upon the opposite persons ability and resources. This concept may seem narrow-minded, but it explains the overwhelming amount of couples who love for convenience. When a person shows up in ones life that can fulfill their needs, but is not physically attractive to that person, gold digger or not, that individual can develop a love for the mate they are now dependent on in some way, whether it's financial and/or emotional. That is love without an initial passion.

A nice smile, a beautiful face, a great butt , a sexy laugh or even a beer belly can induce passion for some individuals. These outer elements of illusion fuels a persons passion for another person. Passion often stems from fantasy and a plethora of visual desires. Meanwhile, some people can meet others they have no interest in but over time they realize that that person is the right one for them. Love depends on many variables exclusive to each person with their own set of DNA. So... this dilemma can go both ways, there can be passion without love and love without passion. It all depends on who's loving who and what's most important.

By Canaan W.E.J Robinson