Cross-Cultural Marriage: Identity and Choice

Description

As societies world-wide become increasingly multicultural, so the issues of identity, belonging, tolerance and racism become imperative to understand in their various forms. This book adds to the discussion by examining the interface between the lived, personal experiences of people in cross-cultural marriages and wider socio-political issues. One major contribution this book offers is that the marriages discussed are from a very broad range of cultures and classes. Amongst other issues, contributors examine: the legal and social factors influencing cross-cultural marriages; the personality factors and positive or negative stereotypes of otherness that influence spouse choice; notions of identity, gender and personhood, and definitions of difference, and how these are often tied up in emotive stereotypes; how all these factors affect the ongoing process of living together and the ability to cope; and how the children of such marriages come to terms with identity choices. This book should be highly relevant to the growing number of people in cross-cultural marriages, as well as to professionals in the fields of marriage guidance, child welfare and academics interested in ethnicity and kinship. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Page Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors 1 Introducing Mixed Marriages 2 Crossing Over: Mixing, Matching and Marriage in Mallorca 3 Chance, Choice and Circumstance: A Study of Women in Cross-Cultural Marriages 4 The Seduction of the Exotic: Notes on Mixed Marriage in East Nepal 5 Crossing Racialized Boundaries: Intermarriage between ‘Africans’ and ‘Indians’ in Contemporary Guyana 6 The Politics of Cross-Cultural Marriage: An Examination of a Ghanaian/African-American Case 7 Freedom of Choice or Pandora’s Box? Legal Pluralism and the Regulation of Cross-Cultural Marriages in Uganda 8 Love and the State: Women, Mixed Marriages and the Law in Germany 9 Cross-Cultural Marriage within Islam: Ideals and Reality 10 English and North American Daughters-in-Law in the Hindu Joint Family 11 Gender Identity and Gender Role Patterns in Cross-Cultural Marriages: The Japanese-Danish Case 12 Not all Issues are Black or White: Some Voices from the Offspring of Cross-Cultural Marriages Index