The “Mixed” marriage is any marriage in which great differences exist between the husband and wife, particularly differences of culture or religious training. You also have a “mixed” marriage if there are decided differences of personality, of intelligence, of education, of age, of race or nationality, of social culture or of economic status.
Suppose there are great differences. That’s what makes life interesting, some people say. Differences may be “interesting” but if they are really fundamental they can form a gulf between the two mates that will make happiness difficult to achieve. It is the conviction of the authors—based upon a study of hundreds of happy and miserable marriages—that the more a man and girl have in common the more likely they will enjoy being married.
One of the factors that seems to have great importance in making a marriage work is the congeniality of the two persons. This congeniality must be built upon the things they have in common. The more things they have in common and the fewer the differences, the greater the likelihood of congeniality. And the greater the ease with which the two can talk over their mutual problems fully, frankly, and understandingly. The success of a marriage depends upon the total adjustment the two personalities can make to each other. Even where couples are highly compatible far-reaching adjustments must be made. When to the normal differences you add fundamental differences of background, the sheer problems of adjustment will add a severe strain to the union.
Suppose the two people do bridge the gulf between themselves. There will be great differences between their two sets of parents that may present problems. And there will be the differences between their two sets of friends. No couple lives completely alone. Two mates not only take each other for better or worse but also they must take with them the parents and friends of the other.
Take two cases with which we are familiar. They are typical of the cases in the files of any marriage counselor. (Their real names, of course, are not used.)
John is forty-two years old, a Catholic, a Democrat and had a high school education. His young bride, Margaret, is twenty-four, has had three years of college at a fashionable finishing school. She is a Baptist and a Republican. These two people think they are in love. Perhaps they are. But on the other hand Margaret was attracted to John chiefly for his “maturity,” his handsome appearance, the very nice compliments he paid her, and the success he has made of himself. She likes the idea that he is a self-made man. (He is the junior partner in a business, and his income is about six thousand dollars a year.) John is fussy and parsimonious in his habits and thinks that going to the movies once every month or two is enough for anybody. He is not very sociable and would rather stay at home and read some thrilling mystery story than go out. He lives with his parents and has specified that Margaret come and live with them as his mother is not in too good health. Margaret is vivacious, full of life and energy, very much interested in parties, dancing and sports. She is warmhearted, and since she was accustomed in her own home to having servants, she is careless where she puts things. After she finishes dressing her room looks as though a Kansas cyclone had struck it.
John was attracted to her despite her “odd” ways because she had given him considerable appreciation for the progress he has made without much formal education. She is the most attractive girl who has ever shown an interest in him, and he subconsciously feels that her social position in the community will be an asset to him in the success of his business. Despite their present professions of love it is hard for us to believe these two will find lasting happiness in marriage. They have too many points of difference.
Jim and Mary, in contrast, are what we could call compatible. Jim is twenty-eight, a college graduate in business, and is a junior executive in an office-supply firm. He is a sociable person, likes the movies, wants to go to an occasional dance and has many friends among both sexes. Mary also likes to dance, has many friends, enjoys parties and sports. She was graduated in liberal arts in college but in addition took a secretarial course. He is a Methodist, she a Presbyterian. He is an independent in politics though reared in a Republican home. Although Mary has voted the Republican ticket she tends to be something of a liberal, politically. They became acquainted in their senior year at college and now both are working at the same firm. If they go through with their marriage we predict they will find a great deal of happiness in it. They have so many things in common.
In the last few chapters we have already pointed out how crucial it is for a couple to have compatible personality traits. Studies have shown that unhappy couples frequently disagree on their friends, matters of recreation, the way they demonstrate affection, the way children should be reared and other things that are a vital part of marriage. The research of the Marriage Counseling Service at Penn State has shown that the couples who disagree most are the couples whose personalities are least alike. Take the great difference of ideals in the case of the son of the traveling salesman who is rushing the daughter of a clergyman. She is almost spiritual in her ideals and at home learned to restrain all manifestations of affection. The young man is handsome and dashing, a fast talker and a social butterfly. He likes to tell dirty stories and to get drunk. It is unlikely that their romance will progress far enough to contemplate marriage, but if they should get married, the radical differences in traits will produce a great unhappiness.
What are the other factors besides personality traits that can produce mixed marriages? Here are the main mixtures to watch out for.
Are There Fundamental Differences of Religion? If the couple are of different religious beliefs their philosophies of life may be so deeply different that they may be liable to constant friction.
One German study showed that the fewest divorces were in marriages between Jews and that the largest number of divorces occurred when a Catholic married a non-Catholic. In Maryland, twelve thousand young people were asked the religious affiliations of their parents and also asked if their parents were living together, divorced or separated. Here were the percentage of broken marriages found in different groupings:
| When both parents Jewish | 4.6% |
| When both parents Catholic | 6.4% |
| When both parents Protestant | 6.8% |
| When religions mixed | 15.2% |
In other words, a mixed marriage is two or three times more likely to end in unhappiness than when the marriage is not mixed religiously!
And in inter-marrying some combinations seem to be more explosive than others. Below are three possible combinations in descending order, with the bottom combination least likely of all to produce a happy marriage.
Catholics have the greatest difficulties in inter-marriages presumably because their church takes a sterner view of inter-marriage than do the other churches. Another factor may be that they are taught not to use birth control devices (though family spacing through “rhythm” is condoned).
Suppose that a Catholic and Protestant do marry. There are thousands of couples who have achieved happiness in spite of religious differences. You can achieve it, perhaps, but both of you should face the problems involved in such an inter-marriage before, not after, the wedding. If possible one should agree to embrace the religion of the other. You should also definitely agree on the church in which the children are to be reared. You should even discuss the size of the family desired because that may become a point of difference. If both refuse to budge from their religion they must face the likelihood of disharmony developing after marriage, particularly as children come along and decisions must be made about their religious training. Religious inter-marriages are particularly difficult when one or both are deeply religious and feel very strongly about holding to their particular faith.
Are There Significant Differences of Intelligence? A wife can be somewhat less intelligent than her husband and they can still be happy, but almost any other variations in intelligence are apt to produce problems, especially if the differences are pronounced.
Studies have shown that husbands and wives usually are much more alike in intelligence than in physical characteristics. People in general tend to select mates whose mental ability is about the same as their own. When two people of vastly different mental equipment marry, the less-endowed mate is apt to develop very strong feelings of inferiority, and the two may find it very hard to select interests and activities to share. The more intelligent one unconsciously may develop a superior attitude that may be patronizing or impatient.
Another thing they are bound to disagree on is how to spend their leisure time, the kind of friends that they will have, the social ethics they will have, and in fact their whole philosophies of life. The brighter mate reads serious magazines, listens to symphonies and forums, reads little or no light fiction. The less intelligent mate is interested in the spectacular radio programs, reads the more frothy magazines, has few deep intellectual interests. It is the glamorous, exciting things that appeal. Also they do not share ambitions. Two such people cannot talk over with each other their hopes and ambitions, their frustrations. There is no sharing. One feels aloof from the other.
Are There Four or More Years Difference in Formal Education? There can be wide differences in schooling but only as long as the two people’s interests and attitudes are about the same. And in these days of wide reading, radio information, night schools and correspondence courses, two people may differ greatly in formal education but differ little in their informal education.
However, it does appear to be a fact that the happiest marriages seem to be those in which the two people met each other on a school campus, took similar curricula, lived in the same academic background.
Are There Wide Differences in Your Economic Background? This is closely related to the social differences. Mothers have encouraged wide differences in economic background by teaching their daughters to marry “up” the economic scale. They are urged to make “good catches.” It is only human for a mother to wish that her daughter will not have to scrimp as she has had to in her marriage. It also enhances a family’s social prestige if a daughter can marry “up.” However when there are wide differences in the incomes of the two sets of parents, those differences are accompanied by differences in social background which are often hard to reconcile. Added to this is the factor of acceptance that invariably arises when either a girl or man marries way above his own economic level. The parents and friends of the wealthy mate often assume that the other married for money. That may produce serious tension and create a lasting in-law problem.
Is There a Wide Difference in Age? One study has shown that the least happy marriages are those in which the husband is six to eight years older than the wife. Perhaps it is not the difference in age itself so much as the fact that people that far apart in age will be unlike in other respects which creates the strain on marriage.
The happiest marriages for wives seem to range from one extreme where the wife is four years older than the husband to the other extreme where the wife is four years younger than the husband. The happiest marriages for husbands seem to be those in which the husband is from one year older than the wife to where the husband is four years older than the wife. When all the evidence is analyzed it would seem that the happiest marriages for everybody concerned are those marriages in which the husband and wife are within one to two years of each other.
Are There Differences in Your Social Culture? Here is a girl who has been reared in the South. She was taught to be a lady, to be waited upon, not to work because she would have servants. Here is a man brought up in Nebraska, reared in a home where his own mother was hardworking, not only did the housework but occasionally helped milk the cows and helped do other chores for her farmer husband. With the Southern girl there has been a tremendous emphasis upon “family,” on social prestige, on doing certain things in certain precise ways. In the case of the Nebraska man, little of this formality has been present. Instead the emphasis has been upon hard work, upon thriftiness, upon a wife sharing heavily the responsibilities of earning a living. Two such widely differing philosophies are likely to produce grief in marriage. The war, with its tremendous shifts of population, produced a great many of these interregional marriages. They are certainly not doomed but the couples should face frankly the problems involved in a mixing of cultures.
Those, briefly, are the main types of mixed marriages. You should enter into them carefully, if at all. In any case where there are serious differences of background, the couple should compare themselves carefully, see just what the differences are, be realistic about those differences, ferret out the special problems that those differences will create (as in the rearing of children), agree on ways to attack the problems and solve them. Only then is there hope that the marriage can be a success. The difficulty is that couples tend to gloss over differences that exist. They refuse to identify them, to admit their existence. They put off facing them. Then later in marriage the problems can no longer be avoided and by then they have become so acute that reconciliation becomes very difficult.
For example, if a Catholic wants to marry a Protestant, it is far better for the couple to see the problems that will exist from such a mixed marriage before they are married than after they are married.