Barriers in Intercultural Marriage

ASSALAMUALAIKUM and Good afternoon to all. In my second post in this blog,I'm Amalina will signify the barries and the solutions that can be taken to overcome it. According to Christine Benlafquih, one of the barriers that occurs in intercultural marriage is prejudices and social attitudes, sometimes newlywed might hide their feeling or opinion if they dislike or hard to accept certain things of their spouse.This common aspect must be avoided and it is useful if each partner understand each other culture well before they get married. Besides that, other barriers that be found is religion conflict. It might take some time to spouse to comprehend with their new religion if they converted to other religion. If this happen,their partner must be patient and understand that people don't change easily and quickly. They also must be supportive. In addition, language barrier also plays a role in intercultural marriage as communicatin is very important. Each partner should learn their spouse language,s they could communicate well in their life.
I think that's all from now. Till i'll write again. Wassalam.
Amalina.


thanks amalina...
hai friend, i'm Bahtair and maybe second post in here, Amalina have said many things here and all of what she said is correct. I want to add little more things here that the barriers in this intercultural marriages, what i want to share is the barriers between famaly. What i mean here is some family are disagree white hwo are want to mariage other people from other culture.
why they wont?
The reason for this barriers is they scare that thier culture will destroy and terminate. They thinks this marriage can make thier own son will forget thier own culture and they thinks thier son will follow the other culture. That type of thinks is not good.
Other reason is they scare that thier son will change thier religon, ofcourse with intercultural marriage, the people need to change their religon but i thinks just in islam. In islamic religon if some people in other culture and religon want to marriage each other, person hwo is in other religon need to change thier religon to islamic religon, so that maybe the course that why there are to many people in other culture is not agree with intercultural marriage.

that what my opinion is, if have any eror on my grammar or vocabulary hope its better in other time..


23 comments:

nur H.A.N.A samsudin said...

salam, hi there

it's true, in the cultural marriage, the problems don't just revolve around the couple but also their families and relatives.

when intercultural couple decided to get married, there are some issues they need to consider. whether they are willing to sacrifice being away from home, and live in a new environment, or cope with spouse's differences in life principles, or still, in some cases, having to change their religion...

I think coping and trying to blend with a new culture is not the hardest part. as Muslims, we were taught:
the Prophet Muhammad SAW said " A woman is married for four things, i.e., her wealth, her family status, her beauty and her religion." However, a woman should be married for her religion, or otherwise, the man will be on the lose end.

therefore, in islam, a couple should get married because of their personalities, not materialistic factors. Islam also promotes intercultural marriage to get to know others better, to have great relationship among human regardless of their differences. human are created from one person, Adam AS, then Allah created Hawa (or Eve) as his companion from loneliness. then from both of them become the variety of human races and tribes. there are definitely problems but there's always solution for a matter.

it would be great to learn many cultures as well as try out new things in a new place. you can eventually go back to your hometown, it's not that we give up our hometown entirely, right. therefore, we have to tolerate and compromise when it comes to fulfill the need of each of the couple.

where as for the family and relative, sometimes it's hard to accept the huge differences, but the couple have to take a step at a time. they should each others' family and try their best to show them the great personality that the other has and why they are they suitable one for you to get married with. families are often reluctant to accept it because they just wanted you to get the best, and they are afraid that an anomaly partner would give you a hard time since the obstacles are rather more than the typical ones. in the end, they will want to see you be happy, right...

nur H.A.N.A samsudin said...

*im sorry, in the last paragraph, the sentence should be
"they should introduce theis partner to each others' family and try their best to show them the great personality that the other has and why they are they suitable one for you to get married with"

nur H.A.N.A samsudin said...

moreover, there would be society bad impressions for escaping from tradition. the family might or might not be a part of them, right.

Anonymous said...

@ Amalina and Bahtair: why are you so afraid of other religions? Why do you think, an intercultural marriage means to change the religion or culture?
To me it sounds, that you are not so sure about your belief, and fear to lose it when coming too close to a different culture.

@Hana: great approach. Allah created Adam and Eve, so we are a big big family. Same as a "normal" family, we are all a little different and and have problems, but still we belong together. And there is always a solution for the problems. Terimakasih for teaching me!

Christopher

amalin said...

hi there..
it is not about i'm afraid of other religions..What i wrote is something that is general and based on my understanding of my reading.My personal view is religion is the first thing you have consider when you wants to get married with someone of different religion.
thanks for your comment.

nur H.A.N.A samsudin said...

Hi Christopher

Actually I want to say that we three, the group members of this team, post general unbiased posts to discuss the matter. But when we comment we give our personal opinions or additional information. So don't point on them just yet, yea.

But others' comments and sharing are much appreciated. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Dear all,
sorry, when I was impolite, hope you may forgive me.
What makes it so important for you, that your partner shares the same religion? To me it seems, that belief is personal.

Christopher

nur H.A.N.A samsudin said...

Hi Christ, no we really appreciated you comments here, it really gives us ideas, you know.

And talking about your experience, my eldest sister actually gets involved in an intercultural marriage. We're Malays, right, and my brother-in-law is actually and Chindian whose parents were Chinese and Indian. Therefore he has a Chinese family name 'Lee' with his new Muslim name.

However his colleagues are mostly Chinese and most of the time he speaks Cantonese with them. He speaks Malay with us, or else... we can only listen and stare! LOL. So now he has two names - his old friends, colleagues and families would call him 'Alex' while us, the new family would call him with a Muslim name. Not that it matters, names are important, but it's not necessary to change names when you convert religion. Yes, he converts his religion to Islam, but it is not due to the marriage. He had embraced Islam even before he met my sister. Some from his family also have embraced Islam. Yes, I tell you, it's a very interesting family ^_^

The funny bit is, when told that the children are Malay-Chinese-Indian (what's the term for this??), most people thought my sister's the Chinese one! Instead of my brother-in-law. Because, he's a Chindian that looks so Malay! LOL. The kids are smart, no doubt, and cute. The eldest child looks pretty much like our side of the family, while the second and third ones are Malay-like but more like their father. However the youngest one is very Chinese, my brother-in-law's sister (who looks Indian) claims that she (the youngest child) looks like their mother (the Chinese grandma). Phew! What a story...

Unfortunately due to the environment the children don't learn Cantonese or Mandarin much. I think they should've, you know. They have the advantage.

And my brother-in-law's family is rather interesting. He may looks Malay, but his eldest sister looks like a pure Indian: tanned skin, big brown eyes and the 'Bollywood'-like nose (pardon my vocab LOL). But she has a daughter who looks like a pure Chinese! And people often thinks that she's adopted! haha. But she wasn't, she IS the daughter.

Meanwhile, my brother-in-law's other sister looks very much Chinese (who gets married to a Malay man; such a multiracial family, huh?) and the youngest one is Malay-like, like him.

p/s: I didn't realise how colourful the family really is. Until now! LOL. And yes, we absolutely, utterly, completely, on the whole, have no (not a bit, not a single, not at all) with any of them.. God bless!

nur H.A.N.A samsudin said...

Hi there!

Christ I meant to respond to this
"What makes it so important for you, that your partner shares the same religion? To me it seems, that belief is personal. "

but instead I posted the previous comment.

Alright, this is my opinion. I figured that your 'you' means us, and I'm going to share my view as a Muslim perhaps representing others, but overall it's my perspective on religion and marriage.

What is religion to you?
A belief, just a must-haves, faith when you're having a hard time, an unexplainable practice...? Or so on. To me, a religion is how you deal with your life entirely. Islam is about everything, from prayers to wearing veils for women to the way we speak, the way we mingle, the way we sleep, even. Does it sound rather too restricted?

It actually is not. On the base, like prayers and fasting in Ramadhan months, these are musts. All Muslim recited the Syahadah as a vow as a Muslim and live by the 5 Pillars of Islam and the Six Pillars of Iman. Now, these are like the vows you made when you're a citizen of a country, to have the citizenship, right? These are the how to categorize a person as a Muslim.

But for things like how we choose our education, jobs, partners for life, these are the same as people from other religions. The main point is to choose wisely, as people vary and so does need and desires. We just need guidelines so we won't be lost and to avoid ourselves from getting involved in hot water.

Let’s put a situation. For instance, why do Muslim women have to wear veils?
Okay. So why do wear pants? And why do we wear T-shirts? To cover our body parts for some reasons, but what is it, really?
Why not all people just go around naked. Would it matter? (Excuse my French, yeah)
Muslim women are told by God to wear veils, and cover their body parts for many physicals, like every physical reasons such as avoid from hurting ourselves due to hard surfaces (like shoes), avoid coldness, or hotness, etc, but one of it is also to prevent ourselves from being a target of sexual harassment. This sounds rather orthodox, but let me explain how I feel. We know that men are straight forward and not just in a Muslim world but men generally, this is global that concerning girls, men are only after ‘one thing’. Yes, this is a general statement, right? Because it’s general you need to be alert. We don’t judge people at once, so you can’t decide easily; who’s good and who’s bad. Even the term ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are objective. Then how are we supposed to know the bad ones… That’s why we cover our bodies up and wear veils - to avoid the negative possibilities.

nur H.A.N.A samsudin said...

...continue...

Why would be it so important for a husband and a wife to have the same religion? In Islam, again, it’s a way of life. If it’s a way of life, how do we cope with each other when we believe in two separate things? It’s like having to captains in a ship, or two car drivers in one car. Where do you go? I think you get the idea. It isn’t just about the husband believes in a God, and the wife believes in there’s three Gods; end of story; eat, sleep ad work normally.

In everything, there is how that Allah told us to do. It is all stated in the Holy Quran. Of course, there’s no telling on how to make a delicious pancakes, but Allah did say, to learn something you don’t know, learn from the person who knows it best.

Islam is beautiful for those who understand. It tears me apart that people think it’s a radical religion which practices violence. It is a fact that in every religion there’s some types of follower:

1) The one who understands deeply and know how the practices really are
2) The ones who claims to embrace the religion but isn’t really following or doesn’t really care
3) The radicals or extremists who have certain believes

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend anyone or judge his believes. This is my view of Islam and why I as a Muslim will marry a Muslim. I know, some countries allow Muslim to marry someone from other religion but as far as I may concern, it is not allowed in Islam.
For us, it is love to God above anything else. And by loving God you don’t become a radical thinker; but you tend to have goals in life. Not just in the world, but in after life. You study because of knowledge, no matter if it’s engineering, language, or science because we are required to help each other out, all human regardless of religions, races or nationalities. Physically and spiritually. That’s why some people may be wealthy but they find themselves feeling empty.

Beliefs and life and science walk along. That’s Islam.

nur H.A.N.A samsudin said...

...continue...

Marriage in Islam is so pure, two people destined to be together no matter from what backgrounds. Islam promotes us to get to know people from different races because we all come from Adam and Eve, so supposedly there’s only one race of human! Back to the question again, belief is personal. Yes. You can’t force people to accept a particular religion because it comes from the heart; it is untouchable, all in your mind. But by saying this I am not agreeing to Muslim who does not marry Muslim. It’s personal because you can’t force it. But it’s important to marry a person who believes in one God, the same as you and live the same way of life. By all means I don’t mean the obvious thing, physicals and materials. But spirituals. When both of you believe in one God, you’ll see how smooth it is on the base of the relationship, how easy it’d be. Of course no marriage is easy but on the base it is much calming and smooth.

Remember when I mentioned some people put religious issues as sensitive issues? I have the same feeling right now; I hope I’m not misleading anyone. But I need to let those opinions off my chest and I feel the responsibility to respond to that. I may not be on a religious course of studies but I’m a person who believes in a religion in a marriage and that’s how I feel.

But I have to say that if the words I said was wrong, forgive me because I’m only human, yeah. And this is what I’ve always known: ~~ Islam is beautiful. If you see a Muslim as a good person, it’s because how he understands the religion. But if you see Islam as bad, then it’s because the followers do not follow well enough.

p/s: Do respond and share thoughts, yeah.

nur H.A.N.A samsudin said...

***Whoopsie daisie!! Error..

in the comments about my sister's intercultural marriage, what I really meant was:

"p/s: I didn't realise how colourful the family really is. Until now! LOL. And yes, we absolutely, utterly, completely, on the whole, have NO (not a bit, not a single, not at all) PROBLEM with any of them.. God bless!"

And we have no problems coping with each others' traditions as well. God bless all!

Anonymous said...

Wow, there is a lot in my mind, and I don`t know where and how to start. I just throw some thought to the blog, because it is quite complex and hard to sort.

About the restrictions:

Of course I noticed, that in Malay culture there are much different restrictions than in my German culture. But as usual, there are always two sides. Restrictions sound so negative. In your post you also called it “guidelines”. Restrictions limit your life, but guidelines make it wider. It is pretty much your own decision, how you want to see it.
Restrictions exclude you from the world, but guidelines can open it to you. Therefore I think, the religion should be seen like that: a guideline to God, and not a way away from the world.



About the veil

Surely we need clothes to protect our bodies, if the surrounding makes it necessary. In Germany, it is very cold for about 6 months, and if you don`t wear clothes, you can die within a few hours.
In Malaysia it is quite hot, so I don`t think the clothes are necessary to protect yourself from the surrounding. Technically spoken an umbrella should be enough to protect from rain or sun.

Surely sexuality plays an important role in our lives, especially to men. I also know, that often men cannot behave properly towards women, I totally agree. But making the women covering themselves, because the men cannot behave properly is not the right approach in my eyes. It is better to teach the men how to behave, so women do not need to cover themselves anymore.
I also have to (from a man`s point of view), that I never fell in love because of a sexy body. It was about wonderful eyes, cute laughing, the style, and so many other things, but never about the size of a breast or a back or arms or legs.

I think the veil is more to a sign. It says: I am a proud Muslim! It is a way towards God, and not a restriction. When I go to office in the morning, I wear a business suit to say: I am working! Clothing plays a big role to show other people, who we are (or want to be).


Religion

In terms of how we get along with each other I found out, that all religions are pretty similar: love god, be honest, do no lie, be polite, love your parents/family and so on.
So the way to God is different, but the way to behave to each other is almost the same.

In Germany (and I think it is similar to the rest of Europe) we can see, that Christianity is shrinking dramatically. In my hometown Hamburg in Germany they think of closing 25% of the churches officially, but I personally think, that half of the churches should be closed because of the lack of interest (lack of believers). On the other hand we have a growing Muslim community. Most of them are Turkish or Persian.
I found out, that they also mix religion with national identity. My Malay friends in Germany also rather go to the Indonesian embassy for than to the local Turkish mosque.

http://15malaysia.com/films/chocolate/

http://auroracoda.wordpress.com/

http://gorigirl.com/

Anonymous said...

Aaaargh, actually I only needed a preview and didn`t want to post it now.

However, here my additions.

I have contact with Muslim people from different countries. For me personally the Malay way of Muslim was the most friendly kind of Islam I was introduced to.

I think that Moslem and Christian belief are very similar. It is like brother and sister: different outside, different inside, but the same mother.

Christopher

Anonymous said...

About these links:

http://15malaysia.com/films/chocolate/
http://auroracoda.wordpress.com/
http://gorigirl.com/

I posted these links, because i thought they may be interesting for you.
The first link is about Malaysia, and how different cultures get along. We Europeans think, that Malaysia is very intercultural, because 3 very different cultures live together well (have problems, but okay la).
For a foreigner like me, the Chinese, the Indian and the Malay culture are very different. Please correct me if I am wrong.
The other links are about an American girl married to an Indian man. For me it was very interesting to see, how a Western person feels in an Asian surrounding.

God bless u,

Christopher

Christopher

Anonymous said...

After the last posts on this blog, I take Hana`s posts as the post of the community (you all 3). Please correct me if I am wrong.

I highly appreciate these teaching about Muslim belief. You seem to be open towards the world.
In my surrounding, the Muslim people do not like to talk about their belief. For me it seems, that for entering Muslim belief, you have to be Turkish or Persian in order to talk about the Islam (main Muslim immigrants in Germany).
It is confusing, when national and religious matters are mixed.
Do you have Muslim Chinese or Muslim Indian mosques?

Christopher

nur H.A.N.A samsudin said...

hi there Chris

Oh my, I really didn't notice your comments, it's been a tough week, assignments+presentations+quizzes+laptop breakdown=not online. Well, you'd posted some rather interesting points there but I'm afraid I'm going to have to pass for the moment or at least for another 10 hours. But I'll make sure I'll be back alright, God's willing, I promise. Thank you so much for participating in this discussion, it means a lot to us.

p/s: This is my friend's laptop, so I won't appear often. Anyways, keep the peace where it belongs. Till then. This blog is getting more interesting by day... just like what I said to our lecturer. See ya people soon~

nur H.A.N.A samsudin said...

But I must say, it's so typical to think that all women with veils are Arabic. So, Malays are actually exotic, ey? (sorry if I'm babbling out of topics) Yeah, sometimes we can't help to go and stereotype due to our surrounding. But we still have to ponder about it. As much as we don't like to be judged, simple just don't start judging, right.

Well, really gotta go. See ya all soon. Take care!

Anonymous said...

Sorry, but especially about the veil, there is a necessity to judge.
In Germany, at the public schools, there was often a Christian cross hanging in the classrooms. So the Muslim teachers went to court, got right, and the crosses were removed. At the same time, the Chistian teachers went to court, because they disliked the veil as an religious symbol.
And you can imagine, that in Germany, there is a big discussion about the Muslim veil.
And since I live in a country with a growing Muslim population, I have to think about those problems.
I certainly do not want to fall into stereotypes, but I also need a point of view.

CU,

Christopher

nur H.A.N.A samsudin said...

Yeah, Christian is the main religion there right..the major community. So, the approach should be very different isn't it.. How do they settle that?

Talking about veils, I was told by my course mate (who's Christian) that they (the women) too supposedly should wear veil. Well, unlike the Musleem's but something like that.

Anonymous said...

To your first question: it is a very complex matter, and too big to answer here. A short impression would be: now the Muslim communities are a growing population, which already has enough money and power to erect large mosques in the bigger cities. It showed, that if the communication between the cultures was good from the beginning, it was accepted by everyone living there.

The story about the veil is very interesting for me. Beside personal taste, she may also express her identity as a Malaysian. Maybe this is an example, how a religious symbol has changed to a national symbol (identity).
It may be also a nice example, how traditions are transported to modern times.

Okay la,
have a nice weekend la,

Christopher

Anonymous said...

Just read an interesting article about how Muslim people think about Western people and vice versa. It made me see, how much I think in stereotypes...

http://gempamelayu.com/2009/02/08/the-great-divide-how-westerners-and-muslims-view-each-other/#more-127#

taken from

http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportD=254

Have a nice day,

Christopher

Anonymous said...

just would like to ask a question, for a report I am writing, how did anyone involved in an intercultural marriage come to an agreement on the way they were going to raise their children? and was there any conflict regarding the issue?

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