I believe in recognizing every human being as a human being–neither white, black, brown, or red; and when you are dealing with humanity as a family there’s no question of integration or intermarriage. It’s just one human being marrying another human being or one human being living around and with another human being.
― The Autobiography of Malcolm X
There comes a stage in our lives when each one of us needs someone whom we can call our soul-companion. Whether by falling in love or by being arranged in a relationship, one finds his/her mate for life. But, when it’s about love commitments or love marriages, countries like India are still to come out of the inter-religion or inter-caste marriages. A little diversion from our previously written subjects like “Heading for a Love or an Arranged Marriage”, this one would deal with a much alluring but rarely discussed theme of interracial marriages or interracial relationships.
Most Fascinating Facts About Interracial Love Affairs and Relationships
Love is the base and foundation of any serious relationship. And agree or not, the love marriages or relations have their own gripping stories or experiences whether about meeting for the first time or struggles to convince respective families for permission to marry and the life thereafter. And here the emphasis is upon the marriages or relationships which have interracial partners. Here are some of the most enthralling features or facts about interracial marriages are:
- Background plays an important role in any interracial marriage, as the statistics say. If the couple are from a well settled and well functioning family, they are older and much educated as a result of which they have a good income and a stable marriage.
- Couples with not so well performing background are vulnerable to financial conflicts or frequent arguments and thus a not too stable or long lasting marriage.
- Racial prejudice is sometimes the main factor. How a partner reacts and overcomes racial remarks or comments is crucial to the relation. People can be taught not to discriminate but cannot be stopped from passing remarks. In such a case if a partner reacts wrongly or gets affected too fast, this results in marital discords.
- The pre commitment affair between two interracial people can be really interesting with respect to the attitude of the two regarding races.
Challenges and Pitfalls In An Interracial Marriage
In most of the cases couple in a love marriage have faced some sort of hurdles to get married. Let’s take a quick glance on the obstacles enroute to an interracial relationship-
- An interracial marriage means entering a whole new culture and religion and developing new relations with people entirely different from your own. This at times requires a lot of courage and tenacity. Criticism would have to be faced at every step especially if the marriage has been against the family’s wishes. Patience is the virtue to a successful relation in such a case.
- Disagreements from either or both the families is one of the very common problems in such marriages. Bringing the parties to mutually agree might take a lot of time and efforts and could involve a lot of unacceptable or difficult situations for both the partners. Such situations demand calmness and thoughtfulness.
- When in an interracial marriage, it is obvious for your significant half and your parents to feel alienated or no connection towards each other. This might result in some emotional upheavals. A well maintained respect for the elders in such a scenario is promising for future betterment with respect to the rapport with the members around.
- Random racial remarks in public are quite expected when you are out with your partner from a different race. Be fearless and spirited enough to introduce or accept him/her being your love interest. Shrinking away from truth to avoid facing remarks can be destructive for your relation as it is likely to make your partner insecure regarding the relationship with you.
- In an interracial marriage, both partners come from two different types of cultures and beliefs. Whose beliefs to be agreed to after commitment, can arise often. Such disagreements over different values can eventually rupture a relationship.
- However open minded your family might be with other people, things are different when it’s about their own family. They are likely to give a cold shoulder even though the acceptation comes with time.
- An interracial marriage is a doorway to an entirely new world for both the partners. It is in a way a medium to widen your own attitude and understanding to a different culture and its people. Apart from the principles required in any successful marriage, dedication and a positive approach are vital in an interracial marriages.
- Navigating an interracial relationship towards success can be complicated. Imposing each other’s culture on one another can be irritating. The key lies with celebrating and enjoying both the cultures with equal importance.
Why Not To Date Interracially?
Dating or committing to a man/woman of different colour can be advocated if you are really serious about it. But an interracial dating or commitment is not always a bright idea. Read forth to know why:
- Even though some nations remain racially stratified despite of their rules and claims stating them to be racially open minded, such relationships remain a tough choice. If one enters an interracial relation not out of love and commitment but in view of gaining status, the relation should not be initiated.
- Why would you like to commit to or date someone of a different race? If it is for mutual feelings of love and romance, it’s a green signal for you, but could it be just because you see it in trend in the contemporary wide minded world? Your reasons for commitment would be the judges for your future marital stability.
- In many families, it is clarified beforehand that the daughter or son must not date or marry a person from minority race. As a result of this, such commitments spring out of a rebellious act. In such a case it’s more than clear that you intend to use your partner as a medium of revolt against your parents.
- Such commitments are often the result of an inferiority complex faced by the minority groups. Minority groups are the victims of racist remarks which makes them accept the ways to erase all the possible traits which separate them from the majority race. Dating and committing to the so called superior racist people is thus for some an act of abolishing such traits.
- Sometimes, dating a person from another race is due to repeated sunken luck from commitments in the same race. So it’s not the commitment and love that forces you to marry, but a wish to try your luck out by dating a person from a different race.
How To Make Your Interracial Relation A Success?
If you whole heartedly intend to give yourself to committing to your interracial partner, then follow these simple but effective tips:
- Remember always that successful relations are never governed by race, creed or colour, it’s all about common interests.
- Do not let others impose their anti racist thoughts upon you.
- If parents deal with their interracial daughter/son in law with understanding, the two families too are likely to develop good relations.
- After an interracial marriage, children of mixed race are bound to be a victim to racist remarks. It is necessary to make sure that your children are well prepared and taught about the insignificance of any such comments towards them.
- Celebrate each other’s cultural occasions together.
- Prevent yourself from sharing your negative feelings regarding your partner’s culture.
Marriage and committed relationships are tender and need a lot of dedication, devotion and trust. The amount of these necessary factors increase when it’s an inter caste or an interracial relation.
This was the woman Narasimhan had married, as opposed to whatever girl from Madras his family wanted for him. Subhash wondered how his family reacted to her. He wondered if she’d ever been to India. If she had, he wondered whether she’d liked it or hated it. He could not guess from looking at her
― Jhumpa Lahiri, The Lowland
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