Interfaith marriage
Interfaith marriage, sometimes called interreligious marriage or mixed marriage, is marriage between spouses professing and being legally part of different religions. Although interfaith marriages are often established as civil marriages, in some instances they may be established as a religious marriage. This depends on the religious doctrine of each of the two parties' religions; some prohibit interfaith marriage, and among others there are varying degrees of permissibility.
Several major religions are silent on the issue, and still others allow it with requirements for ceremony and custom. For ethno-religious groups, resistance to interfaith marriage may be a form of self-segregation in order to preserve the cultural identity and religious beliefs among members of the same group, while interfaith marriage at times has been at times seen as a form of resisting boundaries established by religious and social norms. In an interfaith marriage, each partner typically adheres to their own religion. One issue which can arise in such unions is the choice of faith in which to raise the children.
Legal status
Human rights
According to Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, men and women who have attained the age of majority have the right to marry "without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion". Although most of Article 16 is incorporated verbatim in Article 23 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the references to religious and racial limitations is omitted. Article 17, clause two, of the American Convention on Human Rights says that all men and women have the right to marry, subject to the conditions of domestic law "insofar as such conditions do not affect the principle of nondiscrimination established in this Convention."United States
According to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center, interfaith marriage has become increasingly common in the United States during the past decades. While of marriages performed before 1960, 81% of marriages were between spouses from the same religious denomination, 11% were between spouses of different Christian denominations, 5% were between a Christian and a religiously unaffiliated spouse, and 3% were other mixed forms of interfaith marriages, the corresponding figures for marriages performed in the period of 2010–2014 were 61%, 15%, 18% and 6%. Interfaith marriages are least common among Hindus, Mormons, and Muslims, and most common among religiously unaffiliated people, mainline Protestants, and Jews.Joan Boocock Lee, an Episcopalian British-American actress who was married to the agnostic Jewish-American comic book creator Stan Lee until her death, stated that the couple faced difficulty adopting a child in the mid-20th century United States. Since the 1960s, American composers have written wedding music for use during interfaith marriage ceremonies, most notably John Serry Sr. With this in mind, Serry devoted the remaining thirty-five years of his professional career to the performance of wedding music and liturgical music of the Jewish and Roman Catholic faiths as a freelance organist at the Interfaith Chapel of Long Island University C W Post Campus in Brookville, New York. As more rabbis sought to unite couples of different faiths without first requiring conversions in the 1960s and 1970s, he collaborated with several clergymen of both the Jewish and Roman Catholic religious traditions, including Rabbi Nathaniel Schwartz and the Rev. John Heinlein.
India
Interfaith marriage is controversial in some areas, especially disapproval of relationships between Hindus and Muslims. Advertisements and films depicting Hindu-Muslim relationships have attracted condemnation and legal action. Hindu-Muslim couples have experienced harassment, including posting personal details on social media. In 2020 and 2021, several Indian states with BJP governments passed laws prohibiting forced conversions, and requiring notification of intent to marry and a waiting period, and allowing anyone to object to the union. Interfaith marriages have been taken as an inherent indication of a forced conversion, despite some individuals stating they will not be converting in order to marry. Fearing vigilante violence and after facing long delays and uncooperative lawyers and government officials, some couples have fled to other states to get married, often losing their jobs. In August 2021, the Gujarat High Court limited the scope of that state's law on the grounds of freedom of religion.According to scholar Tamalapakula, within the context of interfaith marriage, the social dimension of the caste system in India should be heavily considered. In various instances in her study of interfaith and inter-caste marriages, arguably the dynamics of class and gender play a pivotal role in the development of social relationships between families of interfaith and inter-caste marriages. In one of the used examples, in the marriages between Brahmin women and the Dalit men, the men are often viewed poorly by Brahmin relatives and isolate from their Dalit relatives to avoid association, to attain a similar status to the Brahmin women which is socially seen as ¨pure¨ compared to the Dalit man
Still, marriage is often seen as a means for the improvement of social status by Dalit men and even as a means of transcending the boundaries of caste-based discrimination and constraints for both men and women. Yet, for Dalit women, Tamalapakula argues that given that the higher castes would never accept them to be as the legal wife of a Brahmin man and as they are seen as sexually exploited from their Dalit relatives, it is another example how interfaith and inter-caste marriages are essentially tied through structural inequalities surrounding gender and class. Thus, while interfaith marriage is seen as partly controversial and legally acceptable, it is part of a larger power dynamic that crosses between class and gender within Dalit and Brahmin castes.
Saudi Arabia
is dominated and heavily influenced by the Salafi brand of Sunni Islam and its Wahhabi ideology, a political and religious ideology named after Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, an 18th-century Sunni Muslim preacher, scholar, and theologian from the Najd region in central Arabia, founder of the Islamic revivalist and reformist movement known as Wahhabism. Hence, religious rights are restricted both for Saudi citizens and foreigners that reside in the country. Public celebration or advocacy of any other religion is generally prohibited.Israel
In Israel, marriages are performed by delegated religious authorities. As such, most interfaith marriages are de facto not performed without a recognized conversion. This system is largely a continuation of the Ottoman Millet system in which different communities were allowed to control their own internal affairs. In the Druze religion there is no marriage between Druze and non-Druze and in traditional Judaism there is no marriage between a Jew and a Gentile. Thus, interfaith marriages in which one of the spouses is Jewish or Druze, are not recognized by the state. Muslim Qadis sometimes perform marriage ceremonies of a Muslim with a Jewish or Christian woman, and Christian priests in special cases perform marriage ceremonies of a Christian or Christian woman with a non-Christian, and in other cases they are recognized retrospectively, and in any case the state recognizes these marriages. All interfaith marriages performed in other countries are recognized. Hitbolelut, meaning assimilation in Hebrew, is a term used mainly to refer with prejudice to Jews who marry outside of the Jewish people. The term has strong resonance in Israel and with many Jews worldwide as marrying outside historically meant leaving the Jewish community to be absorbed by the dominant culture.Perhaps because of these norms, interfaith marriages between a Jewish individual and a non-Jewish individual are extremely rare in Israel. One Pew Research Center study, conducted in 2014–2015, indicated that only about two percent of Jewish individuals were part of an interfaith marriage. In addition, about 97 percent of Jews in the same stated that they would be not be completely comfortable with their child marrying a Muslim while 89 percent expressed similar views when asked about a hypothetical marriage to a Christian.
Lebanon
Depending on the sectarian affiliation of the partners, there are different legal frameworks governing interfaith marriages. As secular civil marriage is not possible in Lebanon, the religious laws of the 18 recognised sects must be followed for marriage. This leads to different restrictions, such as Christians, who cannot marry non-Christians in a church, or Muslim women, who cannot marry Christian or Druze men unless one of the partners converts to the religion of the other. For Lebanese couples, an option to circumvent conversion is to have a civil marriage in Cyprus. Based on a comparison made between the 2011 and the 2018 electoral registration records, a slow but steady change in mixed marriages is measured. The data shows an increase in the percentage of Lebanese marriages that were interreligious without conversion, from 0.9% in 2011, to 1.31% in 2018. In general interfaith marriages represent between 2 percent and 5 percent of all marriages among Lebanese.In her book Love Across Difference: Mixed Marriage in Lebanon, Lara Deeb explores the histories of several interfaith couples and their lived experiences. In this work, Deeb describes how partners negotiated strategies to continue practicing their respective religions and how to handle religious differences in raising their children. Furthermore, the book describes familial reactions to interfaith marriages, as well as social reputation and class related concerns, and religious prejudices in Lebanon. The reactions depicted in the book varied widely, ranging from immediate acceptance to rejection and shunning. Deeb discusses not only interfaith marriage, but also points to similar issues arising from marriage between different religious sects. According to the author, interfaith marriage is becoming increasingly accepted in Lebanon. However, the disagreement between those in favor of and those against interfaith marriage is growing.