Inter religious marriage

1. Lack of support from family and friends

According to sociologist Lynette Clemetson, the relative lack support that inter-cultural
couples might receive from friends and family in the initial period of their relationship, can
give rise to trust issues between them later which makes the relationship difficult (Clemetson,
2000). Family do not have confidence in their marriage as feel they come from different
religions that practicing different culture. Parents reactions were also guided by negative
ethnic stereotype commonly with ethnic group whose their childs partner is a member. For
example, Malays were perceived to be lazy, laidback and hypocrite by some Chinese family.
2. Challenges of understanding each other
Religions shape everything from way a person practising his or her lifestyle to how he or she
view the philosophy of life. Communication itself can be a challenge for couples who have
families who speak different languages. For example, misunderstandings occur or when the
"foreign" language is spoken at family gatherings. In addition, different customs and cultures
teach different values and priorities. Two people that come from different religious
backgrounds have different point of view in nurture their sons or daughters. For example,
teach their children the history of each others religions, or letting their children in
participating religious events.
3. Patience and acceptance
There are always dilemma moments in an inter-religious marriage when differences in
beliefs. This is because one person that lived so since birth is hard to change their, thinking,
attitudes and lifestyle. According to Johari, vice-president of the Malaysian Chinese Muslim
Association (MACMA), he said that in a mixed marriage, highly tolerance is needed to
accommodate the differences. We cannot force others to adopt different customs. So, its
mean that same ethnic marriages are less complicated than mixed ones as both sides have
practising the same belief systems. For example, Dusun enforce sogit as a type of penalty
to outsiders who wanted to marry members of native group according to their traditional
customs. Prior to marrying his Dusun wife, a respondent of Brunei-Malay descent was
requested a pig as sogit by her family. Due to his Islamic beliefs, the respondent could not
fulfill the sogit literally. Thus, he gave his future parent-in-laws money that amounted to a
pigs value.

4. Childrens belief system

Couples from different belief systems and life philosophies need to guide their children to an
ideal beliefs systems is really challenging. Since neither self or spouse strongly affirm their
respective religions and yet neither of them wishes to convert to the others religion, their
children cannot be raised in a religious way of life. Every religious have same core value,
yet, their practices and traditions are different. Couples need to guide and instil the basic
understanding of religions to their children in very early stage. For example, couple that do
not want to offend either spouse, either Judaism or Christianity will be practiced and it is
wrong to assume that some innocent mixed of the two religions can be constructed so as to
communicate the ethics of both. If marriage between Muslim and Non-Muslim, non-Muslim
must firstly have converted into Islam then can married. Thus, their future children
automatically raised with Islam religion based Syariah Law. On the other hand, marriage
among Christian (between Catholic and Jewish) also have difficulty in pick up a religion to
their future children. They will have argued each other
5. Hard to convince both sides parents
Normally, parents will show strong emotion towards their children that want to get married to
someone from a different caste. Religion remains the main concern among inter-ethnic
couples who are considering marriage. For example, a non-Muslim is expected to convert to
Islam to marry a Muslim. Parents concerns that religious conversion would lead to conflicts
between the individual and ones parents and family members. By converting to Islam, nonMalay parents worry that their son or daughter would be facing difficult living due to a
comparatively stricter religious practices as required in the religion, such as conducting
prayers five times a day, fasting from dawn to dusk during fasting month of Ramadhan and
only can consume Halal food and drinks. In addition, stronger objection towards daughters
who wanted to convert her religion to Islam than sons. This is because parents worry that
their daughters marital life could be insecure as their future husband can marry more than
one wife as permitted by Islamic teachings. Marriage not just involved both of the person but
it involved of both of family. It also quite difficult to convince a very religious family.
6.

Cultural Assimilation

Cultural assimilation is incurring where the process an individual and groups language
and/or culture come to resemble those of another group.

7.

Religion Prohibition

In the Catholic Church, canon law deals with mixed marriages (a marriage between a
Catholic and a baptized person outside the Church) and marriages in disparity of cult
(marriage between a Catholic and an unbaptized person). Distinction is made between interdenominational and interfaith marriage, and some denominations extend their own rules and
practices to other Christian denominations.
8.

Wedding Ceremony

Both of spouses are willing to follow their own way of religion or traditions for celebrating
wedding ceremony. This is because both inter religion family are involved. For instance:
wedding spiritual, wedding costume, wedding style, food and beverages and so on. This
could be a difficult and lead to conflict among each other. Islamic marriage is guided by
Islamic laws and practices specified in Al-Quran. In choosing wedding costumes, they must
ensure their intimate parts of body are covered (tutup aurat). According to non-Muslim
marriage ceremony, either Buddha, Christian and so on, they usually prefer drinking alcohol
drinks to bring the meaning of good news or happiness. However, alcohol drinks are
prohibited towards Muslim couple. Thus, when a Muslim married with non-Muslim there are
many rules must be considering in order celebrate their wedding event. non-Muslim and
her/his family is need to be more tolerate for the acceptance the differences in the wedding
day and preparation. Moreover, for the Catholic, marriage is a church event not only for
family event.
7.

Religious disaffiliation

Religious disaffiliation is an action of person leaving their faith, or a religious group or

community. In another terms, it can to describe disaffiliation as defection (pembelotan),
apostasy (murtad), and disengagement (pengunduran). However, Muslim is prohibited to
leaving his/her religion