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Love from two worlds: How love from two different cultures works in India

Marriage is considered one of those most sacred and special events in one’s life, especially in India. Marriage and love in India go hand-in-hand where not just the partners marry but families of the two individuals get connected too.

In recent times, the most important factor that we can see creating problems in the lives of the people are cross-cultural marriages happening more and more often in India. Some of the pros of cross-cultural marriages are:

Developing interpersonal skills.Learning how to get along with people from entirely different world views will demand tolerance, patience, open-mindedness and willingness to see another person’s point of view.

Cultivating appreciation for diversity.You are opening up your senses to another culture’s tastes, smells, sounds and sights.

Opening up to life’s possibilities.You will begin to understand that there is no right or wrong, only perspectives.

The cons of cross-cultural marriages are:

Compromising on your most cherished beliefs. You will need to meet the other person half-way. You may come to a point where you need to choose between keeping the relationship, and letting go some of your cultural prejudice, or staying true to your personality as shaped by your culture and letting go of the other person. For instance, would you give up your Christian beliefs when you marry an atheist?

Making a huge leap of adjustment, especially when the other person does not come from the same region.Religion and politics are usually hotly contested grounds between people coming from the north and people coming from the south. One of you may have to acquiesce to the values of the other to maintain harmony in the relationship. For example, are you willing to share the socialist ideals of Europeans from such economies?

Dealing with practices that are acceptable in the other person’s society but prejudicial to your own. For example, you may marry into a culture that practices, and sometimes even promotes, sex-selective abortion. You will have to decide whether this is something you will do for love, or will you abandon the relationship altogether because you can’t let go of your deep-seated respect for life.