Gambling with Your Future: Two Religions, One Marriage

Suraj, a Hindu man, married Mary, a Christian Indian girl. At the time of the marriage, they had agreed to bring up the children in both faiths. Over time, however, Mary who is with the children all day, began taking them to church and teaching them about Christianity. Suraj, who works long hours, does not get the opportunity to give them a Hindu education. Now the girl's priest and her relatives are trying to prevent the children from even accompanying their father to the Hindu temple.

Of course, marital harmony is not guaranteed even in marriages between Hindus, especially when one is religious and the other not. Saraswati, a young religious woman in Mauritius, loved satsang, doing karma yoga with other Hindus, and performing a puja and meditation daily. She wanted a religious husband, and she repeatedly refused matches with men who ate meat or were too worldly. But her parents were very anxious to get her married off. So she gave in and married Ramanathan, who said he would let her be vegetarian, raise the children as Hindus, and continue her religious activities. But after the wedding he wouldn't let her go to the temple, demanded she eat meat, and sometimes beat her. The deeper tragedy here was that everyone had failed her -- not only her parents, but also her close friends, relatives, and community elders.

The loss of Hindu religious culture through mixed marriages is common in many countries around the globe, especially in the U.S.A., home of over 600,000 Hindus. Religion is not discussed much in mainstream America. Interfaith couples tend to avoid this topic. They feel that if they can avoid the troublesome "R" word, their marriage is safe. The result is that some parents bend over backward to avoid the rituals and traditions of either faith, and their children are brought up without any religious convictions. When faced with tough times, these children lack the bulwark of faith built on the example of parents, rituals, and religious childhood memories.

Suresh, a young engineer in Atlanta, married Anna, an American woman, with the understanding that both cultures would be respected. Once the children came, she did a complete turnabout. She would not allow them to go to the Hindu temple, derogated the Hindu culture, and basically turned the children against everything Indian. Her relatives started taking the children to a Christian church. Suresh found his children didn't want to associate with anything Indian or eat Indian food. He was heartsick but felt he had no choice. Though still together, their marriage is a sham.

Dr. Rao, a scientist in San Antonio, Texas, has seen many interfaith marriages crash on the rock of religion. He comments, "When the husband and wife do not subscribe to the same religion, the greatest victims are the children. What I'm afraid of is these children who are not able to have any spiritual guidance will have nothing to pass on to their own children. It will lead to more and more unhappy situations."

Paradoxically, Dr. Rao, although seemingly against interfaith marriages, blessed his own daughter's union with a Jewish man. The couple were married in ceremonies presided over by a Hindu priest, a Christian minister, and a Jewish rabbi. Yet Dr. Rao finds no discrepancy between his words and his actions, for he believes in Hindu philosophy, which allows a view of God as universal. He feels he can worship God in the form of Krishna and still be totally comfortable in a synagogue or a church.

It is this same idea of one universal God that he has passed on to his children, and which they hope to pass on to theirs. True, these children will not be orthodox sectarian Hindus, but they will be Hindu in a broader, all-embracing sense. Such is the elasticity and humanity of Hinduism.

Dr. Rao maintains religion itself -- eclectic or sectarian -- is vital for the well-being of children. And it doesn't help when parents are divided on the religious issue. "In India, there's a saying that a cart has to be pulled by both bulls in the same direction. If one bull pulls in one direction and the other pulls in the other direction, the cart will never move forward."

This article was first published by Hinduism Today and is reprinted with permission.

Lavina Melwani has lived in India, Africa, and Hong Kong. She has written for an eclectic bunch of publications including India Today, Worth, Newsday, Asia Inc., Hong Kong Standard, The Hindustan Times, Bride's, Art and Antiques, The Week, Beliefnet, Hinduism Today, Tehelka, and The Indian Express. She currently resides in New York. She blogs at Lassi with Lavina.