How to Understand Why People Choose Mixed Marriages Despite the Risks

Have you ever wondered "if mixed marriages are so risky, why are there so many?" How much effect will what we have just said have? Almost every book and lecturer on marriage urges people to take them straight, not mixed. Powerful religious groups add solemn notes of warning. Scientific investigators give statistical under-girding to it all. Yet despite this combined weight of popular, ecclesiastical, and scientific authority, couples keep right on doing it. Why? Here are some reasons.

In some cases, a person from another group may actually be the best choice. For some people, special and peculiar interests make it difficult to find anyone who is really suitable. For example, Fred, a Baptist student in a conservatory of music, had an extraordinary feel for music which was far deeper than that of his fellow students. He became acquainted with a Jewish girl of little education who had that same passionate feeling. Their very souls seemed to blend in this common interest.

In this case the one thing in common was so powerful and so central, that other differences could safely be overlooked. The danger was that the interest was only the form of some psychological disturbance.

• Serious psychological disturbances.
Elsie is the attractive daughter of a college professor. While she was a student in college, several eligible men showed a decided matrimonial interest. But she made no response. Instead, one year after graduation, she fell violently in love with a Negro who had not gone beyond the eighth grade, and who himself was married and had five children. She persuaded him to divorce his wife and marry her. Obviously so serious a break with group standards at three vital points indicates some serious psychological disturbance. A thorough psychological analysis of her conduct would probably reveal strong feelings of resentment against her family or against society, or perhaps strong guilt feelings for some supposed sin for which she feels that she must punish herself. Of such feelings the girl herself would probably be unaware.

• Repudiation of the family pattern.
This is a less extreme form of the above. For reasons which we shall not develop here, children often become sick and tired of their whole culture and everything it stands for (so they think). Many books and plays portray a character (such as Higgins in Shaw's Pygmalion) who have been born and brought up "properly" in the best society, but take an almost satanic delight in puncturing the "affectations" (standards) of their own group. We think that they are funny because the affectations which they ridicule are not the ones which we happen to hold dear. For such "social rebels" a person may be attractive because he is a member of another group. If the marriage is to succeed, however, he should have other qualifications, as well.

• An improvement in position.
We may wonder why the rich girl marries her chauffeur. But nobody wonders why the chauffeur married the rich girl. For the person in the lower social position, the marriage may represent a decided step up. On the other hand, the person who married "beneath" him does not necessarily lose his position. It represents what is probably the best possible chance for the girl. Practically all eligible men can marry. But many of them do not. Because they will not, many girls cannot marry. A girl may face the sobering reality that for her, it must be a mixed marriage or none at all.

• The individuals are just too lazy, or too impatient to look around and make a really proper selection.
In most cases, especially with men, the mixed marriage does not represent any of the above. Many mixed marriages, for women as well as for men, occur because they are more convenient.

A girl once wrote to her army boy friend stationed in Australia, "What do the Australian girls have which I don't?" He replied, "Nothing, but they have it where I happen to be at the present time." The above principle may be quite satisfactory for dating. It is decidedly risky for marriage. For example, here is Vic. Vic has become well-acquainted with a girl who has quite a different religious and cultural background. It is easy to see what attracts him. She is breezy, vivacious, and has a fascinating smile and an alluring figure. She is decidedly less reticent and more approachable than the girls from Vic's background. There are a dozen or so girls who would be far more suitable for Vic if he would take the trouble to cultivate them. But he already is "in love" with the girl, and it would take him some time and trouble to transfer his affections. Vic's marriage, like that of thousands of other Vies, Bills, Susans and Ruths is mixed because he did not make the effort which a suitable selection would involve. Most mixed marriages are like this. They could and should be avoided.