Marriage and Religion - Research Paper Example

Marriage and Religion Introduction In the world of globalization, people find it easier to interact with other people of different cultural backgrounds. Sometimes people of different religion and cultural backgrounds can fall in love. Several unexpected issues may arise on marriages of dissimilar religion backgrounds. People travel and explore all over the world and can eventually fall in love with local women. But marriages of different religion and races do not work. Many couples, who fall in love with each other decides to, marry regardless of the situation and issues. Finally several problems confronted by couples which results in to divorce. Couples of different religion such as Catholic and Jewish had to face several challenges. The church does not support and encourage the practice of marriage between catholic and Jewish. The traditional perspective on Jewish marriage was contractual bond between man and woman which is commanded by god. Catholics people believe that marriage is the gift which is in the hand of gods. Both religion vividly follow the practices entertain in the church. This research paper will discuss about the marriages that does not work if people support different religions such as Catholic and Jewish. Analysis Until recent decades, it is really uncommon for people to marry of different religion backgrounds. But in this generation, people are marrying outside the faith and religion. There are several challenges that arise due to interfaith marriages. Over the last decade in United States, more than 45% of marriages are of different religion. Interfaith couples i.e. couples of different religion are often tend to marry each other regardless of the practical religion problems. The rate of divorce of marriage of different religion is very high. According to the survey in the year 2001, reveals that 23% of the Catholics and 27% of Jewish are married to people of different religion identification. It is also stated that different religion identification marriage are maximum between 26 to 35 years. 58% of the marriages are between 26 and 35. The ethical norms and values of certain religion are hampered due to interfaith marriages. In the year 2011, it has been surveys that different religion marriages can lead to divorce or separated. It has been found that three times the number of mixed religion marriages are divorced than that of same religion marriages. Divorce rate of couple who are religious is 20%. Mixed religion marriages can eventually has disagreement over the raising of children. There can be certain disagreement about the religion of children. In today’s generation, people of different cultural and religion background fall in love due to globalization. People moves around the globe and can eventually fall in love regardless of the ethnicity and religion. Love between the couple may be powerful and influential nevertheless it is not stable emotion. Religion is as important as the love in maintaining healthy marital status (McGinity, 2009). The divorce rate of marriage between Jewish and Catholic is doubled than that of marriage of same religion. The rate of marriage of different religion by Jewish people subsequently increased from the year 1970 to 1996. The percentage increased from 13% to 47%. But certain claim from Jewish people stopped the increasing rate mixed religion marriage. Many Jews people illustrated intermarriage as the destruction of Jewish people. This describes the fact that many Jewish people are against the different religion marriage. The marriage between Jewish and Catholic is invalid in the eyes of Church. People used to die for Jewish nation. Jewish people want their children to follow Jewish principles. This determines the fact that Jewish people were proud of their religion and want their children to follow their norms and beliefs. The marriage between different religions may create several problems such as parents and society not accepting the marriage. This can eventually lead to misunderstanding between couple. Love can be defined as powerful to sustain any kind of issues and difficulties. But several outcomes and issues can make love unstable which leads to divorce. When couples of different religion background marry each other then they share their weakness and strengths. Fears and hopes and religion dimension plays a pivotal role for the longevity of marriage. Religion difference between the couples can create several misunderstandings and challenges which couples need to compromise or sort out. Many issues and problems can lead to break down in interfaith marriage. Faith is one of most important disadvantage of interfaith marriages. Raising children can become problems. As children have to decide which religion they should follow. Sometimes they might hate certain religion and God. Both married couple of different religion background such as Jewish and catholic may find it difficult to lead a harmonious life in future. One of the possible disadvantages of interfaith marriage is the reaction of the family members of couples. It can be traumatizing for parents of couples to see their children marrying different religion partner. Many of the young people in today’s world are not interested in religion identity. This view of young people makes family members angered due to the rejection of possessing any religion background. 47% of the Jewish people are marrying now Jews such as catholic. Jewish –catholic religion marriage is 39% in the year 2001. In Washington D.C., it has been found that 50% of the Jewish people fall in love with Catholics and marry them. According to the statistics in 2010, Catholics marrying Jewish has high divorce rate. The permission of divorce is not accepted by Roman Catholics. Divorce is regarded as insult in the society. This act of Roman Catholics encourages people to marry same religion. But in case of Jewish society, divorce is permitted. Discussion Marriage is the ceremony in which man and women get married and it is recognized by laws. It is the strong relationship that exists between human and wife after marriage. It is social or legal contract that enables couples to unite legally and emotionally to stay forever. In the world, there are different types of people with different religion beliefs. People of different religion often fall in love regardless of the future issues. Several religion beliefs prevent people to marry different religion. Interfaith marriages are the fusion of different religion. But usually marriage of people supporting different religion does not work. Every religion has different ideology and religion beliefs. One of the oldest religions is Judaism. The history of Jewish people starts from ancient Israelite people and eventually ends to Hebrew people. The pivotal difference between Catholic and Jews religion is that Catholic is the Christian domination religion and Judaism is Jews domination. Judaism religion came before the Catholic religion. There is a significant difference in beliefs of both religions. Catholic people believe sternly in the Trinity. But Jewish people mainly believe in monotheism. There is a significant different in the marriage ceremony of Jewish and Catholics. Many families do not resist the marriage of different religion. During the time of Catholic and Jew marriage there is no possibility that Church will accept the marriage (Riley, 2013). Couple lovers can marry regardless of the religion but nevertheless it may create disbelief and anger among their respective families. Families may even refuse to attend the marriage ceremony which can hamper the future relation and can lead to divorce. It is sometimes easier for couple to neglect the religion conviction due to their true love. But for future perspective it can create many problems. There are some situations in which couples deny to attend religion ceremony. In this scenario, families deny to attend marriage ceremony. If Jews marries people of same religion background then they can share common religious belief and ethnic which could not result in future problem. Marriage does not succeed in this way. Emotionally and psychologically marriage is affected by the family problems. Members of community will find it guilty about intermarriage. Intermarriage can possible bring guilty of demise of particular religion such as Jews and Catholics. Greatest task of couple entertaining intermarriages is to confront their families. The Jews community rejects the marriage of different religion. Nevertheless of the steps taken by couples to marry different religion can create serious difficulties and problems for families and couples in future. Catholic partners do not go on nicely with Jews people. The main problem of catholic people is to copy with latent prejudice. Religious families of Jews and Catholics, fear that soul of the individual might be departed to other religion for salvation. After resolving these challenges, new challenges arises for couples is to name the religion for birth of the child. Every partner after child birth has to deice on the education and religion that child has to entertain in future. This can create huge misunderstanding between the partners and can lead to divorce. People marrying within their faith can easily entertain their child’s future education and religion without any problems. Advantage of people marrying within their religion that people can assume due to their community experiences, norms and beliefs gathered during their whole lifecycle. There are also certain understandings that Jewish couple and Catholic couple follows. Catholic partners assume after their birth of their child that children should be baptized. But in case of Jews partners it is totally different; they think that their child will be circumcised (Reuben, 2002). People marrying different faith does not create those assumptions. Some partners can argue regarding the issue and can eventually lead to future problems. These problems may be sometimes confronted but it can sometimes create huge issues. The building block of every successful marriage is marrying within the faith. Many challenges can arise due to intermarriage. It is better not to entertain future, community and family problems. Conclusion It can be concluded that marriages does not work when people support and entertain different religion. Catholic families and Jewish families have different emphasis on religion beliefs. Every religion has own entity, traditions and beliefs. One of the biggest challenges faced by intermarriage is to decide religion and education of children. The concept and beliefs of Catholics and Jewish defers about death, free will and marriage. The religion of Judaism came before Catholic religion. The challenges that Catholic people faces after marrying different religion is that church does not accept the practice of interfaith marriage. It becomes more difficult for interfaith marriage couples, when their parents refuge to attend their marriage ceremony. This difficulties faced by couples can lead to divorce. The rate of divorce for different religion marriages is higher than that of same faith marriages. This is mainly due to the problems and issues that had to face by couples after marriage. Hence it is proved that different religion marriage does not work. References McGinity, K. (2009). Still Jewish. New York: NYU Press. Reuben, R. (2002). A nonjudgmental Guide to interfaith Marriage. New York: Xilbris Corporation. Riley, N. (2013). “Till Faith Do Us Part: How Interfaith Marriage is Transforming America”? New York: Oxford University Press. Read More