Sky News: Issues with Interfaith Marriages in a Multi-Faith Society.

There are many issues with interfaith marriages however in a multi-faith society it is very difficult to prevent interfaith marriages from occurring. In a multi-faith society, young people of different faiths are going to meet, fall in love and want to marry each other. Unfortunately, this can cause many problems for certain religious families. One of the main issues is that in many religions it can be frowned upon, if someone marries another person outside of their own religion. It is believed in some religions that you should only marry people within your own religion. Also, very often if two people from different religions fall in love and want to get married, there can be no religious ceremony because both couples have different beliefs and this means they do different rituals at wedding ceremony's. Couples can only have a religious ceremony if both of them are from the same religion.

Another issue with interfaith marriages is that it can cause problems in a community. If the couple come from two different religions then this can cause issues between the families and the couple themselves. Sometimes arranged marriages happen because the family want to make sure their child marries someone in the right religion. The families have different religions and therefore this can cause a lot of arguments between the families. In some cases the families could try and keep the couple apart and make them fall in love with someone else because a lot of shame can be brought onto a religious family if one of their children marries outside of the religion.

An interview with a Muslim lady, who for this article preferred to stay anonymous. She talked about her marriage with a Christian man and how it affected their family lives.
She said 'I met my husband at my work place, we both worked in the same office and were very close friends. When our relationship started to develop neither of us thought that it would cause so may implications between our families. Neither of us lived at home with our parents and therefore we didn't see any problems with our relationship. When me and my husband got engaged we decided to tell each others families together, we knew they didn't agree with our relationship but however thought they might support our marriage choice. My husbands family wasn't very keen on the idea of our marriage but in time they came around to support us. However my family were very much against it and wanted me to choose between them or my husband. I chose to be with my husband hoping they would soon support me but they didn't, still to this day 8 years after my wedding my family do not talk to me, the shame I brought to my family was unforgivable. I support anyone who wants to marry someone in another religion, you can't help who you fall in love with and it shouldn't matter what religion.'

There are also many other issues with interfaith marriages such as deciding what religion your children will be brought up to believe in and what place they will worship in. Also deciding what will happen after death with your bodies because in some religions there are special cemeteries or special rituals the body goes though once the person has died.

There are many other issues but these are the main issues that most interfaith couples have to face. Living in a multi-faith society means it is hard to stop people falling in love with someone from another religion.

K.L