Marriage Between Two People With Different Culture

Marriage between two people with different culture

Most people think they should remain within their culture when they marry. But, don’t you think it would be fascinating to marry someone from a different culture?

Getting marry often requires compromise, flexibility and love, and for many intercultural couples, getting marry has been the learning experience of a lifetime. In fact, the whole relationship process can be difficult for the average couple, but for intercultural couples, these aspects can also bring difficulties because of all the differences that they have in each culture, but have rewarding benefits as well (Sheri and Bob Stitof. "Facing many Challenges". International Marriage. November 2006. 30 November 2006 <http://marriage.about.com >).

I happen to believe there are great benefits to marry outside of your culture, such as knowing different cultural values and customs, giving their kids the opportunity to learn more than one language, and also the whole intercultural family becomes more open-minded and has a strong sense of personal identity.

As has been indicated (analysis of Census Bureau data 1999), the interracial and interethnic marriages are on a rise because the incidence of these marriages have doubled since 1980. Some demographic analysts are calling this true beginning of the mix of different races and ethnic groups in our society. In the last decade it has become very noticeable in the United States that there are more relationships and marriages between people of different races and ethnic groups (Find Articles. Nov.1999. The American Demographics by Roberto Suro. 30 November 2006. <http://finderarticles.com/>Path:Help; Mixed Couples).

Now days, as we all know, the internet is also a great tool for meeting new people as well. Most of the intercultural couples meet on a web page, like a 60% of these couples meet on a chat room. There are different internet resources for interracial relationships and chat rooms, such as Polly Wama Cracka.com, interracial couple.com, onlinedating.com, ezinearticle.com and datingchat.com. These websites are just a few examples where you can meet different people from all around the world and learn about their different cultures. People can make new friends from a different culture and, in a matter of time, approximately 70% develop into a serious relationship. On the other hand, there is a minimum percentage of couples, around the 30% to 40% that meet each other when they are studying or traveling in a foreign country. At least one member of the couple is familiar with the other person's country before they get married when they meet on the internet. Typically, one of them travels to the other person's country to meet her or him in person and meet her/his family as well before they plan to get married ("Intercultural Marriages". The Investigators. E-channel. Los Angeles,CA. Oct. 2006).

Being married to a person with a different culture, gives you the opportunity to know a different culture and customs. The desire to marry comes with a need to merge two cultures into one. In fact, an eighty percent of future spouses start spending time living in that culture before marriage, visiting their fiance's country of origin as well as spending time with their family. By the time they get married they know the way they celebrate holidays, what enjoy eating, how they are educated. All of this helps the future marriage to know the other person's culture and customs, and how it would be like to spend the rest of their life together. Once they are married they are more familiar and comfortable with each other's costumes and families. They know and respect each other's cultural differences ("Intercultural Marriages". The Investigators. E-channel. Los Angeles,CA. Nov. 2006).

One cultural difference is the celebration of unfamiliar holidays. Around 55 percent of the couples celebrate holidays combining their two cultures and also the culture of the countries. Over all, they begin to celebrate the traditions of the country they are living in, but also add their own traditions ("Intercultural Marriages". The Investigators. E-channel. Los Angeles,CA. Nov. 2006). For instance, Endo Senday was from Japan and her wife Maria Quintero was from Mexico, both lived in Mexico and they celebrated both traditional holidays from their countries (Senday, Alicia: Personal interview 4 Dec. 2006). Also, Luisa Arenas is from Spain, and she is married to Carlos Espinoza from Argentina. They lived in the U.S.A. and they celebrated their both traditional holidays and also the holidays from the U.S.A (Espinoza,Carlos: Personal interview. 6 Dec. 2006). Another example is Milanca Prestiano, she is italian and her husband Rick White is american, they live in the U.S.A. The holidays' celebration from their countries are very similar, therefore, is easier for them to celebrate holidays. Most of the time they celebrate american holidays. They also celebrate some special italian traditions as the "Befana", where italian children hang up their stockings, waiting for them to be filled with gifts by La Befana on January 6 for Epiphany. Italy's traditional celebration includes the tale of a white-haired witch known as the "Befana" who arrives on her broomstick during the night of January 5 and fills the stockings with toys and sweets for the good children and lumps of coal for the bad ones. (Prestiano, Milanca: Personal interview. 7 Dec. 2006).

Other difference, is the food and home decorating. Around 90 percent of the intercultural couples cook the traditional meals from their both cultures. They also combine the way of how each of them used to decorated their houses ("Intercultural Marriages". The Investigators. E-channel. Los Angeles,CA. Nov. 2006). Let's say, Maria Quintero used to cook mexican and japanese food, she learned how to cook traditional meals from Japan. She decorated her house with a mexican and japanese touch (Senday, Alicia: Personal interview 4 Dec. 2006). Also, Luisa Arenas cooks spanish and argentine food. Her husband Carlos likes to cook as well, combining their traditional meals from their countries, and they also eat american food (Espinoza,Carlos:Personal interview. 6 Dec. 2006). Also, Milanca Prestiano cooks italian and american food. She and her husband decided to decorated their house with an american style (Prestiano, Milanca: Personal interview. 7 Dec. 2006).

Another difference, is the religion. Approximately 55 percent of the intercultural couples have been educated in different religion. Once they get married, they decided to practice only one religion ("Intercultural