The ups and downs of intercultural marriages

Even though research shows that a child can learn at least five languages during her first five years after birth without getting confused, as parents, there is always the push and pull on which language the baby should learn, especially when we find ourselves in intercultural marriages. There is always the battle of supremacy on whose dialect carries the day and most cases, women get to win. Not because we argue our way into winning but because of the mere fact that children spend most of their first years with the mother. The constant bonding sessions between mothers and their children give them the best opportunity to choose which dialect triumphs over the other.

Unfortunately, there are those instances when both parents are career people and spend almost the same amount of time with the child, in such cases, parents have been forced to come into an agreement on a mutual language which in the current generation is either English or Swahili. The high number of intermarriages in the current generation has brought forth a generation that knows no dialect and depends solely on the mutual languages, English and Swahili. This has gone ahead to give birth to the rapidly popular ‘Sheng’ language which is a mixture of basically anything and everything one can come up with. Because of this, our heritage regarding our dialects is slowly becoming extinct and our old folks back at home are being forced to get to learn these mutual languages or face the risk of never communicating to their grandchildren.

Unfortunately, as this may sound, dialects are not the only reason intermarriages face obstacles right from the word go. Religion comes in way much ahead as this is something most people never want to compromise. We have all been brought up from different religious backgrounds and since love has no boundaries, we find ourselves entangled in religions we want nothing to do with. Again, unfortunately, in most cases, it is the women who are forced to convert to the man’s religion because of the fact that they shall be the ones to leave their homes and join their husbands wherever. I have even seen cases of battle of supremacy on whichever side will preside on a wedding in such marriages. As if that is not enough, if a woman is lucky enough to stick to her religion all through her marriage till her death, the battle goes on even during the funeral. Different religions fighting on who will preside over the funeral.

This is a very sad affair since it not only affects the parents but goes all the way to the children who in most cases are shifted from one religion to another depending on the mood of the marriage. I have seen a friend change her children’s names overnight after parting ways with her Muslim husband. All of a sudden she was forcing the children to refer to themselves using Christian names while all their lives they have identified themselves otherwise. She even ended up scolding the children anytime they forgot and used the other names.

All this can be brought to an end if only people understand each other and respect each other’s opinions in marriages. There is no need to have your spouse follow you to your church every prayer day while deep down they are hurting. There is equally no need to deny a child roots because you failed to come to an understanding on what culture to follow. If we could only make fair and sane decision, everyone especially mothers, would be a happy lot in marriages.