Religion and Marriage

It would seem I am on a marriage row. This is another of my marriage talk series. As I was engaging with the community earlier today, particularly on @Bilqees article. Something made me think about an hypothetical situation. I am not going to share the details about that, but I will be talking about the epiphany it gave me.

Surely you know marriage is the theme of this article. Today, I will be talking about the reaching a compromise in differences in belief. Surely, two people who want to commit to each other will be different in more ways than one. One of those differences can be in culture or native language. Here in my country, even though there many different ethnic groups and culture, marriages are often between people from the same ethnic group.

Well, today’s article is not particularly about cultural differences, but religious one. With my country as the reference, there are two major religions in my country; Christianity and Islam. It is uncommon to see two people from different religious background get married, at least in my part of the country. When it does happen, you hear one of couple either converts to their partner’s religion or each of them continue with their respective faiths. I think the call for same religion is to make it easier to bring up their offspring in one faith.

I am not a religious person, some may even say that I am not religious at all, but I grew up in a Christian home. I had often think that we are faithfuls of religion we were born into. That is why this religious difference can pose a problem to the children. Also, it is why I think one person changes to the other person’s religion. Most often, it is the woman who converts.

I think the first question I’ll ask my readers, which is an important one is whether you can marry someone who is not of the same religious background as you? People look at that too as a criteria. I have heard Christians say that they cannot marry someone who is a Muslim and I have also heard Muslims say that they can marry someone who is a Christian. For one, the two religions does not the same forms of marriage. As far as I know, Islam isn’t against polygamy but Christianity on the other hand is. What I don’t know is if Islam supports polyandry (my readers can help me out with this).

Personally, I can marry from either of the two religious background, as long as there is a mutual understanding between us. I cannot think that love can or should be bounded by religious (for the lack of better word) bigotry. Also, I wouldn’t compel my wife to go against what she believes and follow my belief, but I guess it is necessary for smooth operation of the family, especially the children.

Growing up, I can say that religion was forced on many people, you are forced to go to church and forced to go to the mosque not. Children don’t really have much say in that aspect of their life, at least not until they become adults. A lot of people may not agree with this, but it is the harsh truth. If we were not forced to churches or mosques, we may not have grown up to be Christians or Muslims respectively. Maybe pagans or agnostics or atheists. There is a fine line between all.

So that I am not bounded in perception to just Islam and Christianity, it is worthy to note that there are thousands of religions in the world and each of them have their specific doctrines and what they believe is true. Marriage is a common institution across the world and it is mostly a union between two people who are different from each other and from other people in the world.

In conclusion, the question I want to leave with you all is:

CAN YOU MARRY SOMEONE WHO IS FROM A DIFFERENT RELIGIOUS BACKGROUND?

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