The Modern Family
Musings on the
Meeting of Different Cultures.
It occurred to me recently that I know
very few couples who come from the same religious or cultural background. Even
couples who are nominally of the same religion often come from different parts
of the globe. In a strange way, I feel more comfortable with this concept than
I do with the idea of choosing your partner deliberately from the same pool you
came out of.
Perhaps it isn't
so strange that I feel comfortable with this: after all, John's family is mostly
Italian and Catholic and mine is mostly Scandinavian and a mish-mash of
Protestant faiths and apathetic agnosticism. We recently went to a party at
Alicia and Guillermo's house - her family is from Gujarat, his from Mexico City.
They got married in a three-day Hindu ceremony, where his family was baffled by
colorful saris, mendhi-painted hands, and hundreds of coconuts. Talking to an
Indian neighbor at their party, he admitted that he had no notion of what was
going on in his own Hindu wedding - his wife was Hindu, and he was Christian.
When I first went to stay
with my in-laws, I was baffled by the noise: it seemed that everyone shouted,
even normally-quiet John raised his voice to be heard above the din. He must
have been similarly confused by my family's quietness and the undercurrents of
tension that rippled between various family members. His family was outwardly
raucous, though universally loving, while mine was outwardly serene, yet
inwardly seething. I had to accustom myself to the noise, while he must have
felt like donning armor to fend off darts of sarcasm. While John and I may
outwardly seem more similar than Guillermo and Alicia, our respective
backgrounds had enough differences to create some initial friction. Alicia and
Guillermo's stories about handling family differences often have more points in
common with ours than contrast.
It is these initial
touch-points that seem to create the most friction: first meetings, weddings,
other moments with great emotional and cultural significance get people wound up
to a fever pitch. Compromises, though possible, are rarely even, 50/50 splits.
I think that is why weddings can create such tension and such great beauty.
Yes, the tradition often honors those who have gone before. But at the end of
the day, when a couple is strong, they can leave behind the struggles and the
angst that are almost inevitable during the run-up to "The Big Day" and create
something that is their own. And when they move on from that day, they will
have placed their stake in the ground, creating something new and unique. "This
is ours," they say. "Our family."
Posted: Friday - April 29, 2005 at 08:44 AM
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