Students marry within culture

Most students will not be rushing to the altar anytime soon, but they said ethnic background not only plays a significant role in choosing life partners, but also in choosing Saturday night’s date.

College of Engineering junior Jill Wolfson said there is no question that she will marry someone from her culture.

‘If I didn’t marry a Jew, it would be really bad within the family,’ Wolfson said. ‘There’s too many differences between people that to have the same religion keeps tradition the same and it makes it that much easier.’

Since she only plans on marrying someone Jewish, Wolfson said there is no point in dating someone of outside of her religion either.

‘I don’t date someone that’s not Jewish either because there’s no reason.’

Nora Khalil, vice president of the Islamic Society at Boston University, said she does not mind that her religion requires her to marry another Muslim.

‘In my religion, I’m required to marry another Muslim . . . which I’m completely fine with because it’s my religious belief, so I wouldn’t want to marry someone who didn’t share those religious beliefs,’ Khalil, a College of Arts and Sciences junior, said.

Religion professor Stephen Prothero said it is not unusual for people to feel pressure to marry within their own religion or to want to marry people with similar backgrounds.

‘I don’t think it’s unusual,’ Prothero said. ‘My Hindu students are not unusual in the pressures they get from their parents to marry other Hindus.’

Prothero said sometimes it is not just marrying within a religion, but also the cultural aspect of marrying someone from a specific region or linguistic group.

‘I think the pressure varies,’ he said.

Lincy Thottathil, a School of Management junior, said region is an important part of who to marry because one region can have a specific religion.

‘Generally, I do feel pressure to marry within my own culture and not only an Indian guy, but a specific Indian guy with a specific religion,’ she said.

Khalil, who is from Egypt, said in addition to being required to marry a Muslim, her parents would prefer her to marry an Egyptian.

‘As long as he speaks Arabic and as long as he shares the same values and religious beliefs, I think I would. It doesn’t make a difference to me,’ Khalil said. ‘I don’t like to have to limit myself to one country.’

A major reason her parents are adamant about her eventual marriage to an Egyptian is that they think it would make it easier to raise children, she said.

Prothero said parents who want to preserve their religion encourage their children to marry within that religion so grandchildren will carry on it on.

Kavita Ramdya, a 2009 BU alumna, wrote her dissertation on how current Indian-American Hindus handle the idea of marriage and the dating process. Although arranged marriages used to be part of the Hindu culture, now ‘love matches,’ a hybrid between arranged marriages and the western dating model, are becoming more popular, Ramdya said.

‘There’s an abbreviated almost dating period,’ she said. ‘Prospects who want to get married meet people in their caste and date them.’

Arranged marriages still exist but are not the way they were in the past because they are not forced, Thottathil said.

‘They’re still really strong because it’s not like the way it used to be,’ she said. ‘Their parents will hear about options . . . and show them pictures. They get to meet them. In the end, it’s the boy or girl who makes the decision.’

Khalil said she thinks students should wait to get married until after they graduate and have gotten what they want out of life.

‘I just think that you should educate yourself and work on your career first before you are involved with someone where your life is going to be dependent on theirs,’ she said. ‘You should find what you want first in life and then find someone who is going in a similar direction.’