What Egyptians Can Learn About Marriage From Other Cultures
Perhaps Morgan’s thought on the subject is complicated; perhaps he will resolve everything into some coherence with the final two seasons yet to be released. But unfortunately, it seems likely that this series, with all its promise and distinctiveness, will be yet another bland reiteration of modernity’s prioritizing of the individual above all else. All in all, intercultural marriages are an amazing opportunity to learn all about another culture. It’s an opportunity to understand how our spouses and their families think and speak. Petronella Lugemwa runs a New York-area based wedding and marriage proposal photography studio specializing in helping multicultural couples celebrate their love in a modern way.
You are definitely not left alone and things are not left to chance. Some anthropologists have argued that marriage IS primarily about children and “descent”—who will “own” children. If a family had two sons and one was already married and still living with his natal family, the second son might live with the wife’s family at marriage if that family had the space. In these situations, which were not considered ideal but still were in the range of acceptable alternatives, young married women found themselves living with their own mothers rather than a mother-in-law.
Experienced again and again, these disagreements cause significant marital and familial conflict. Many of my patients struggle to bridge a cultural divide between them and their spouse–who is of a different culture, country, and/or religion–or between immigrant parents and first-generation children. Communicating across this chasm takes understanding, empathy, flexibility, and most importantly, practice.
Couples who pursue the third option are often the most successful, although it’s arguably the most difficult, precisely because they are forced to address conflicts most frequently. First, take some time on your own to write down your thoughts about each of the three areas. Listen to and acknowledge each other’s responses, resisting any dating in colombia temptation to diminish or discount your partner’s fears. Next, note where you have common ground and where your values and boundaries diverge. No couple has perfect overlap in those two areas, but if they are too divergent, negotiate a middle ground. If, for example, one of you could tolerate living apart for a period but the other could not, you’ll need to shape a boundary that works for both of you.
For example, in rural and tribal parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan, disputes, unpaid debts in default and crimes such as murder are settled by a council of village elders, called jirga. A typical punishment for a crime committed by males involves requiring the guilty family to marry their virgin girls between 5 and 12 year old to the other family. This custom requires no consent from the girl, or even her parents. Such arranged child marriages are called vani, swara and sak in different regional languages of Pakistan. In most other parts of the world, arranged marriages continue to varying degrees and increasingly in quasi-arranged form, along with autonomous marriages.
In Egypt, marriage is seen through many different lenses, mostly of responsibility, children and caregiving, and romance. When things get difficult, it is also useful to travel and see how other cultures perceive relationships, and to borrow some lessons or lifestyles from their culture and apply it to our own. Regardless of where you come from, marriage and family life has always been difficult to manage. Sometimes, however, there are local cultural ideas that can be rewired or replaced with different cultural practices from around the world to see marriage in a totally new light. Couple has the choice to live with either the husband’s or wife’s family, a choice is made based on which location is best able to accommodate new members or which location needs the additional labor that comes from new members.
As an interracial couple, you will possibly face extra challenges in your marriage from people outside your marriage. Sheri Stritof has written about marriage and relationships for 20+ years. This, sir, is one of your marriage’s “perpetual problems,” and if you try to ignore your wife and send whatever you can, you will be destroying her trust. However, if she wins the day and you send nothing, she will be destroying your heart, and no good can come from that either. In my culture, it is customary for the oldest son to financially support his parents, have them live with me, etc.
Think, for a moment, about our taken-for-granted assumptions about to whom children belong. Explain how family patterns represent and reflect cultural contexts. Her brother-employer thought the baby would make their lives more hectic. But because they had “such a great comfort level, that would make it work,” Khris Middleton said. But when he returned to Los Angeles in January 2015, the mood changed. He was also still struggling with the death of his mother a few years earlier.
- Moreover, as romantic love has overtaken the practice of arranged “matched partners,” cross-cultural weddings that join individuals and families with differing values have increased .
- It was assumed that if one partner gathered plant food and prepared food, the other partner should have a complementary role like hunting.
- That is, to treat time with your spouse as something you try to fit in after you’ve attended to the kids, and after you’ve just finished this one last thing for work.
- However, in reality, other people may harbor negativity or judgment about an interracial couple.
We had a cigar bar and cigar rollers, island cocktails, and a photo booth with island props. “I didn’t want a wedding cake, so my mother brought a traditional island pastry, guava duff, from home instead. My husband’s family really wanted a pastel or a cake, so they gifted us a wedding cake as well,” Kiara says. Culturally in Honduras, favors are a big part of the departure from events, so Arles’ family made custom miniature statues so Kiara and Arles could give them as wedding favors. Finally, to connect to Kiara’s Polish roots, they did the dollar dance. Kiara wore her aunt’s wedding apron with babies on it, which represents fertility. When you are from different cultures, meeting your spouse, family members, or neighbors halfway takes practice.
Postmarital Residence Rules
These ideas are often linked to both practical and ideological considerations. Practical considerations might include the availability of housing, work patterns, childcare, the economic contribution children make to a family, or the cost of raising children. Ideological considerations include religious values related to families. In the 1990s, I carried out field research in Croatia, investigating ideas about families.
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There is often marked age asymmetry in these relationships, with husbands much older than their wives. In polygynous households, each wife commonly lives in her own house with her own biological children, but the family unit cooperates together to share resources and provide childcare. The husband usually “visits” his wives in succession and lives in each of their homes at various times .
In the “Early Marriage in The Gambia” section, the writers brought up that awareness of family planning methods is high but uptake is low among adolescents. The findings may suggest that shifting socials norms surrounding how and why family planning is used (i.e. currently only for birth spacing rather than delaying first pregnancy) may also be an important programmatic implication. It might be necessary to note that many women and adolescents of childbearing age from rural Gambia are only recently getting birth certificates, where their age is estimated from memory since the date wasn’t recorded on their actual date of birth. We also found that lack of meaningful alternatives to marriage including work opportunities in rural areas may also limit the options and resources available to girl, resulting in early marriage.
