The Benefits of Interracial Marriage
Love is one of those things that people can’t explain. Like how some people say it’ll come to you when you least expect it. It also doesn’t care about things like country, creed, culture, or color.
It has to be said that marriages that crossed the lines of skin color weren’t always legal in the United States. Even after it was legalized, a couple not being of the same race was enough for the surrounding community to shun them, turning them into pariahs.
But, that’s mostly changed. Nowadays, people not only accept them, but they also recognize the benefits of interracial marriage. And, while they’re not the majority, they’re common enough that they don’t warrant a second look, at least not somewhere cosmopolitan like a big city.
Many interracial couples meet while traveling in another nation or through the internet. While these people come from different countries with different cultures, they still manage to make the relationship work.
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Why Exogamy Is a Thing
But why would people even want to be in one? While they’re tolerated and even accepted, there are still a few people who aren’t going to be happy about two people who are different from each other living their lives.
There’s a lot of reasons as to why a lot of people would want to be in one regardless of the disadvantages of interracial marriage.
The first reason is that a person just doesn’t see their partner’s skin as a factor. They care more about compatibility than they do about what their partner looks like. To them, a person’s character and personality count for more than their skin color or the country from which they came. They have a list of qualities that they want in a partner and a certain skin color is not one of them.
Some people are enamored with a certain culture. Maybe they watched a series or listened to some music. In any case, they find themselves becoming fans of a foreign culture and this adoration makes its ways into their romantic preferences. As such, they find themselves dating and then marrying someone from that foreign culture, regardless of that person’s race. In fact, their race might be part of what’s so appealing.
Other people enter an interracial relationship for the wrong reason. That reason being that they date someone from a different race because they’ve got a point to prove. Maybe they want to prove that they’re open-minded or maybe they’ve got bigoted friends or family members that they’re trying to spite.
And then there are those who can’t seem to hit it off with women in their own country. Many Americans, for example, find headstrong Western women to be a little too much to handle, so they try their luck at love with more traditional foreign women.
The Disadvantages of Interracial Marriage
One of the main disadvantage of interracial marriages is how some people perceive them. While a cross-cultural family dynamic has become commonplace, there are still those that wish the practice would go back to being taboo, if not outright illegal.
This narrow-mindedness can come from family and friends. They can shun the couple simply because they’re not comfortable with two people from different cultures being together.
Interracial couples might be tempted to educate their narrow-minded family and friends. But while that might work to some extent, the truth is that such people are bigoted because they choose to be. They’re willfully ignorant and no amount of education will help them unless they choose to help themselves. In short, they refuse to let others influence their sense of right or wrong.
Why do interracial relationships fail? Because a major disadvantage of being in an interracial coupling is that there may be some cultural differences to contend with. This can be especially prevalent if the two people in the relationship come from two polar-opposite countries.
It’s not just minor things that can cause culture clashes. One person being used to spicy food and one person being barely able to tolerate ketchup is one thing, culinary differences like that can be overcome. It’s another thing entirely when the concept of childrearing is brought up.
Two cultures can have distinct views when it comes to raising children. For example, one culture may see raising children as solely a mother’s duty while the father works, but another culture may see childrearing as a more egalitarian duty that is to be split between both parents.
There’s also some countries where corporal punishment is the norm, but there are plenty of other countries where even a slap to the back of the head is seen as child abuse.
Speaking of children, children of interracial couples may have identity issues. They may be confused as to which side they identify with.
The Benefits of Interracial Marriage
While there are more than a few disadvantages, there are plenty of benefits of interracial marriage.
The first is that it expands cultural horizons. When two people from two different cultures come together, they begin to learn about each other’s backgrounds. They learn about their partner’s country, its history, its cuisine, its norms. Basically, they learn quite a lot about a new country.
It may even lead to travel in the future, as the couple may go back and forth between their countries.
Speaking of which, interracial marriage benefits could potentially include dual citizenship. Some countries have a path to citizenship for foreign spouses. At the very least, children produced by the union should have dual citizenship.
While clashing parenting styles was mentioned above, when two people from different cultures can compromise, it can make for a more well-rounded parenting style. All cultures have their strengths and weaknesses and being able to employ the best of two different cultures can mean that the strengths of one cover the weaknesses of the other and vice-versa.
Does Exogamy Work?
Are interracial couples happier and do interracial relationships last? Well, there’s no way to quantify that for sure because how happy a marriage, interracial or otherwise is. But as to whether or not they last, according to the statistics, it relies on the races of the man and woman in the relationship.
For example, in the United States, interracial pairings of a white wife and a black husband are twice as likely to be divorced by the tenth year than a white wife and a white husband. Conversely, a pairing of a black wife and a white husband was 44 percent less likely to end in divorce within the same time period.
There are a few benefits of interracial marriage, and one of those is that they help to decrease prejudice. Interracial relationships and marriages were once illegal in the United States. But laws and social norms have changed enough that they’re common enough that most people don’t bat an eye at them.
