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Intercultural Marriage: Promises and Pitfalls
Intercultural Marriage : Promises and Pitfalls, Dugan Romano. Intercultural Press. 2008, 3rd ed., rev. ed. 233p.
Marriage is a union of two people, and also intercultural. It can be called intercultural because two people with diverse backgrounds and experience bond together with their experiences, values, and personal eccentricity. Dugan Romano, the author of Intercultural Marriage: Promises and Pitfalls has been in intercultural marriage for more than 17 years and her experience includes working as a counselor and a trainer. In this book she provides a logical explanation by her extensive work in the field of intercultural marriage and emphasizes on the challenges faced by the couples in such marriages. To understand the issues and challenges faced by the intercultural marriages Romano performed case studies by interviewing many real life couples who had partners from different countries. The real life stories of the couples make the book more interesting and easier to understand the problems and pitfalls in intercultural marriage.
She provides plenty of information on the roles of male and female, communication that is expected from both the genders in different culture, issues that arise in raising children, and the importance of food, values and sex. Though Romano does not provide complete solutions to the issues in intercultural marriages, she manages to help the intercultural couples to be aware of the differences in each other’s point of view for their benefit in this book. The book is divided into three parts 1. Daring to be different, that informs what kind of people go for intercultural marriages, the reasons involved and the adjustments they make. 2. The values, food, male-female-sex roles, 3. Intercultural marital arrangements and suggestions to resolve differences.
The theme of the book moves around understanding and exploring the intercultural marriages and provides information on the difference from the regular marriages, or if they are special, unique, or complex and the author provides some suggestions to make these intercultural marriages work. Romano’s research finds that the couples are moving together before marriage to know and understand their partners by spending the maximum number of hours possible with them. Some of the cohabiting partners move in together with intentions to eventually marry, but they do not feel any particular urgency until perhaps a child comes along (Romano, p.viii). Romano’s discovery in the changes of lives of the people can be easily understood when she found that couples are now supporting each other by being professionally oriented towards their career, couples are aware of the cross cultural differences, and most of the couples are children of intercultural couples.
In part I the author let us know that Social Psychologists say that people usually pass through three phases before making a final marital commitment; the attraction phase, the value comparison stage, and finally the role comparison stage, in which they see whether they can function in compatible roles (Romano, p.6). She believes that once the couple reaches the last stage then there will be no conflicts and the couple will understand each other better than any other stages. She considers the personality types of the people for the intercultural marriages that are classified as nontraditional, romantics, rebels, compensators, internationals, and others, and thinks that a mentally healthy individual will not think about an intercultural marriage until and unless that person is undergoing some kind of strain and anxiety.
Romano describes about the influence of food, values, the impact of friends and other social or psychological frustrations in part II. She has identified nineteen trouble spots in her decade long interview process with real life couples and some of the important ones are the finances, in-laws, place of residence, ethnocentrism, raising children, and gender roles and sex to name a few. Some may seem trivial, such as food and time, but married life is made up of day-to-day trivia, and underlying the apparent trivia there are deeply rooted personal and cultural values (Romano, p. 30). She observes that the cultural distinctiveness and the surroundings where the intercultural couples reside make an impact on the marriage.
In the third part of the book Romano describes the four kinds of marriages that are categorized as submission, compromise, obliteration, and consensus. Out of these four types she considers the submission marriage to be very successful as both the partners agree and abide to the different cultures. Living together gives them time and occasion to find answers to many questions regarding such things as neatness, hygiene, and manners; how they eat treat their friends, define their roles and handle their finances (Romano, p.188). She states that the other types of marriage apart from submission have lots of drawbacks on the personal and social front.
In the last section of the book she provides information on the ways to investigate the laws of the foreign country and the economic conditions of the individual before getting into the intercultural marriage. She answers many legal questions related to intercultural marriage. Though the book has conflicting agreements about intercultural marriage, it is an eye opener for the individuals who consider marrying in a different country or culture. The lessons that she learnt in her cross-cultural experience is seen throughout the journey in this book which has been converted into a strategy, and provides good suggestions where the couples can convert the challenges into opportunities for a long-lasting, fulfilling and a healthy relationship.
Works Cited
Romano, Dugan. Intercultural Marriage : Promises and Pitfalls, 3rd ed., rev. ed. 2. Intercultural Press. 2008. Print
