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Inter – religious marriages in India – A taboo?

interfaith-dialog-india

Source: http://roadtodivinity.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/interfaith-dialog-india.jpg

There are so many of us who believe that we marry for ourselves and not our families or extended relatives.Obviously that’s understandable to a great extent. If you and your spouse-to-be love each other & understand each other very well, why should anyone else have any problem at all? Let’s explore the argument in more detail.

Consider a scenario. You love someone and she loves you back. What do you do? If neither of your parents agree despite you making them understand a zillion times, you decide to elope. You expect your parents to understand over time which they may be forced to do after few years. Or instead, you decide that you wouldn’t marry unless the parents approve. Maybe, after a long time the parents may approve as well if they consider that things are not too bad.

But again, if both are from different religions, parents may have a huge problem. What will society think? What kind of customs will they follow? What kind of thinking will their family have? How can I let her touch anything in the kitchen with those dirty hands of hers? All these questions and more spring up in the minds of parents across India even today. We talk about forward thinking but in terms of marriage, there is surely a long way to go.

Let me ask you a couple of questions. If the individual is from a different religion, does that make him or her any small in front of us? If there is love & understanding between two individuals, isn’t it more important than petty issues of religion? Some force the other to change their religion just so that they can approve the marriage. This is another wrong practice which is followed by many out there.

It should be one’s personal choice on the religion he or she chooses to follow. A religion doesn’t define a person’s character or nature. Individuals with the worst characters can hide behind the garb of religion just to gain sympathy of individuals.

Only when we rise out of our narrow mindset of religion, caste, creed etc. would we realize that there is much more to the world than just worrying about all this. Learn to respect people’s opinions and don’t force yours onto them.

And finally, don’t worry about society and what people would say if you marry an individual from another religion. You are not marrying to keep all of them happy.

We need to be the change ourselves to rise out of the narrow mindedness associated with inter-religious marriages in India.

This post is for the IndiSpire prompt – “Are inter-religious marriages a taboo?” on Indiblogger

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10 Comments

    • aseemrastogi2

      It’s really sad Chaitali that even after all the modernization we stuck at petty issues. Thankfully more and more youngsters though are realizing this and speaking out against it :).

  1. There need not be any problems between the couples, if they understand to respect the religions. Once the couple are from, the families too fall in line and accept them. Many of the couples I know celebrate all the respective festivals, or not celebrate any at all. The children have better understanding and wider exposure. Pinpricks from all and sundry are to be expected, but should not be given importance. It is much easier now, with youngsters having a mind of their own.

    • aseemrastogi2

      Totally agree. These days youngsters have realized that they need to rise above petty issues like these and that’s a good sign :).

  2. Anita

    Though I am not a youngster, I do agree with you. However, while marrying, they should consider all the problems they have to face in their everyday life as marriage is a lifelong commitment & no one should run away due to problems.

    • aseemrastogi2

      Surely agree on that. Without considering all the problems and situations, any marriage would never be successful.

      • Abhishek

        Well I feel its easier said than done. After marriage life changes totally and you start looking at things differently. Therefore problems and situations keep changing and its definitely a big challenge – You cant predict the problems. In addition eloping with your lover and thinking that you can fight society may seem good at that point of time (blinded by love), but later the same thing might be difficult to handle. Therefore, inter religious marriages come with an extra tag (handle with care) !! I would like to add that though we do not agree with certain things, but living in society we all follow them (from marriage customs to death customs).

        • aseemrastogi2

          Yeah obviously there is a lot which needs to be kept in mind before jumping into marriage. But again, from a religious point of view, I guess one needs to get out of the fact that a different religion makes a person smaller and shows his poor character.

  3. Very well said! I love the way you expressed things! I am from the Philippines, a Catholic woman, who married an Indian who is a Hindu. Our differences did not hinder us from happiness, instead, its what makes our life more interesting! Here’s a glimpse of it: http://www.pixie-star.com/2014/08/inter-religion-marriageim-a-catholiches-hindu-and-we-rock/

    • aseemrastogi2

      Thanks Lee :). And welcome to my blog. You guys are an awesome example of how people from different faiths can marry each other and be really happy. Lovely post :).

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