Though we had taught our chil­dren about our re­li­gion, we failed to teach them the prac­ti­cal as­pects of in­ter­act­ing with young peo­ple from oth­er faiths. In the West­ern world, it is quite com­mon that young adults date those from oth­er faiths dur­ing their col­lege years. In al­most all cas­es where a life part­ner is se­lect­ed, the de­ci­sion is made by our young adults with pre-emp­tive ad­vice, guid­ance, or con­sul­ta­tion with their par­ents. Re­li­gious dif­fer­ences could bring com­plex­i­ties in their mar­ried life, start­ing with an un­in­tend­ed re­li­gious con­ver­sion to the faith of his/her in­tend­ed spouse.

For this rea­son, it is in­creas­ing­ly im­por­tant for our young adults to un­der­stand po­ten­tial com­pli­ca­tions be­fore en­ter­ing in­to a se­ri­ous re­la­tion­ship dur­ing the years in which they still re­side un­der their par­ents’ roofs. While in­ter­faith re­la­tion­ships should be based on mu­tu­al re­spect for re­li­gious di­ver­si­ty, some­times ma­jor dif­fer­ences in fun­da­men­tal be­liefs pose dif­fi­cul­ties in find­ing a com­mon ground.

Hin­dus car­ry this tol­er­ant at­ti­tude from In­dia that all re­li­gions are good, all help you at­tain through God, and every­one should re­spect not on­ly their own re­li­gion but oth­er re­li­gions as well. But this tol­er­ant at­ti­tude is not uni­ver­sal. Many fam­i­lies in oth­er re­li­gions be­lieve in their ‘monothe­is­tic’ dog­ma.

Their holy books re­ject what they con­sid­er ‘poly­the­is­tic’ be­liefs of Hin­dus who are of the opin­ion that al­though the ul­ti­mate re­al­i­ty is sin­gu­lar, name­less and form­less; its qual­i­ties can be wor­shipped in many forms. But, this prac­tice is for­bid­den in Chris­tian­i­ty, Ju­daism and Is­lam and pos­es a se­ri­ous is­sue when it comes to pu­ja which is con­sid­ered very bad with the wor­ship of ‘idols’ by Hin­dus.

Is­lam for­bids mar­riage with a non-be­liev­er (in Al­lah). Non-be­liev­ers are ex­pect­ed to con­vert to Is­lam by tak­ing the Sha­ha­da oath, the de­c­la­ra­tion that there is no God but Al­lah and Muham­mad as his apos­tle. A sim­i­lar prac­tice al­so ex­ists in some Chris­t­ian sects where there is of­ten in­tense pres­sure from fam­i­ly mem­bers and the cler­gy to per­form a re­li­gious con­ver­sion of Hin­dus by bap­tism be­fore the church wed­ding. Re­li­gious con­ver­sion may be a mat­ter of just a brief cer­e­mo­ny but do not un­der­es­ti­mate this rit­u­al as a triv­ial mat­ter.

Com­mon in­ter­faith mar­riage prob­lems in­clude, not talk­ing about re­li­gious dif­fer­ences, and in-laws try­ing to im­pose their own re­li­gious be­liefs. One per­son in the mar­riage feels pres­sured to con­vert, mak­ing joint de­ci­sions about re­li­gion and one per­son in the re­la­tion­ship be­comes more re­li­gious. Most con­flicts in in­ter­re­li­gious mar­riages will sur­face af­ter you have chil­dren. For Hin­dus, it is vi­tal that chil­dren from their mar­riage fol­low on­ly the rules of their in­di­vid­ual holy book. A Mus­lim spouse and the com­mu­ni­ty may ad­vise cir­cum­ci­sion and some­times an Ara­bic name. A Jew may not ask for a re­li­gious con­ver­sion for the spouse, but may not be com­plete­ly open to chil­dren fol­low­ing an­oth­er faith.

A Chris­t­ian spouse may re­quire the bap­tism of chil­dren and re­quire them to at­tend church, while you may wish to take your chil­dren to the mandir. Some re­li­gious lead­ers and com­mu­ni­ties would like to use the wed­ding as a tool for their am­bi­tion of re­li­gious ex­pan­sion. There was a case in the USA where in the ab­sence of Sha­ha­da and an Is­lam­ic wed­ding (Nikah) the mar­riage cer­e­mo­ny was de­nounced by a lo­cal imam and most of the rel­a­tives al­so did not at­tend the wed­ding re­cep­tion par­ty.

While ex­per­i­ment­ing with re­la­tion­ships with those from oth­er re­li­gions, be sure to find out if there is go­ing to be any pres­sure to con­vert for you, and your fu­ture chil­dren, from not just your fu­ture life part­ner, but al­so his or her fam­i­ly mem­bers and re­li­gious com­mu­ni­ty.

If some­one you are dat­ing can­not show you the same re­spect and ex­pects you to for­sake your re­li­gion for mar­riage, even for name sake, you must ask your­self, if you are pre­pared to tol­er­ate the in­tol­er­ance be­ing prac­tised against you. Be­fore en­ter­ing in­to a re­la­tion­ship, one should have an open di­a­logue about re­li­gious ex­pec­ta­tions and recog­nise the far-reach­ing con­se­quences.

Though deal­ing with this is­sue ear­ly on will ob­vi­ous­ly be im­por­tant for the well-be­ing of the cou­ple, it is al­so a sig­nif­i­cant is­sue for their chil­dren. As per Hin­du tra­di­tion, a mar­riage is an ir­rev­o­ca­ble, pure and re­li­gious re­la­tion­ship. Through mar­riage, two in­di­vid­u­als sac­ri­fice their in­de­pen­dent iden­ti­ties to form a unit­ed fam­i­ly where both ben­e­fit from each oth­er through their abil­i­ties and emo­tion­al sup­port, just as two wheels car­ry a ve­hi­cle for­ward with ease. Mar­riage is a union of two souls. The pur­pose is not re­strict­ed to sen­su­al plea­sures that mar­riage of­fers but ex­tends to cre­at­ing the foun­da­tion of a home, of hav­ing chil­dren and rais­ing a fam­i­ly.