“Why Opposites Attract”
“Why Opposites Attract” Marriage is viewed by society as an essential component of a stable family life. In today’s society; however, the idea of marriage has changed along with people’s mentalities and goals. In fact, people nowadays do not marry as young as before, and less people consider marriage as a top priority in life. Getting married or finding the right person has become a difficult task. Finding a person with the same ethnic origin and faith has become even more difficult, even though it is a priority for many people when choosing a spouse. This task is challenging because America is a multicultural society, with a white majority and a variety of minority groups. If a person does not find a mate within their social environment, chances are this person will go outside his/her circle to expand his/her opportunities to marry. Living in a diverse multicultural society increases the chances of intermixing races, cultures, and religions, a concept known as intermarriage or heterogamy. Society’s attitudes towards intermarriage reveal an interesting perspective in the new millennium. Even though America is gradually accepting intermarriage and more people are marrying outside their faith and culture than ever before, society’s views toward intermarriage can make a major impact on the acceptance of friends, family and strangers. Any marriage is a journey, but for intermarried couples the adventure becomes more challenging. This report will address the issue of intermarriage, its pros and cons, as well as its patterns and trends. Furthermore, I will include interviews of friends and family members who married outside their cultural and religious backgrounds. INTERMARRIAGE: AN OVERVIEW AND EVOLUTION Throughout American history, society’s view of interracial marriage was not only accepted but also against the law. In 1910 various states had anti-miscegenation laws forbidding marriage between persons of different races. These laws were ridiculously strict. Interracial marriages were declared a crime and were voided. Penalties ranged from up to $1000 and imprisonment for ten years or more. Joel Crown, author of the book Mixed Matches tells a story of a couple who lived in Virginia in the late 1950’s. He was a white man and she was a black woman. Soon after the couple returned home from their honeymoon, a county sheriff arrested them in the middle of the night for “breaking the state law against interracial marriages.” As absurd as it sounds, they were punished and sent to jail, tried and found guilty just because they were interracially married. Finally, nine years later in 1967 the law was abolished (35-36). Soon after this law disappeared, people started marrying outside their culture and faith without the fear of being punished. Times were changing, and society started to realize that intermarriage was not a crime. People in the 1970’s intermarried more frequently than their elders, and the outmarriage by immigrant groups in America increased with each generation. From the social point of view, the recent increase in interfaith and interracial marriage is seen by many as a positive change in race relations. It also shows that racial distances have decreased between whites and minority groups because of the increase in interracial marriages. Commenting on society’s intermarriage acceptance, Paul R. Spickard says that “Because marriage is an intimate and often long-term relationship, intermarriage not only reveals the existence of interaction across group boundaries, it also shows that members of different groups accept each other as social equals” (57).