Chapter 5 - Marrying Your Own Kind

"The one big trouble with my husband is that I have to put my mind in reverse to follow his mental processes. Personally, he's a fine guy, but there are just so many things about which we feel and think differently. We do compromise, we do defer to each other; but when you're married and raising two children, so many things come about which compromise goes decidedly against the grain. Much as my husband and I like each other in certain ways, I'm sure both of us would have been happier married to someone of our own kind." Thus spoke a thirty-five-year-old wife and mother, married to a man whose religion and national origin were different from her own.

Differences of this kind are as common as any in the conflicts and tensions that arise between husband and wife. Couples who are mutually attracted to each other in other ways differ about what they consider natural, desirable, important, or the reverse. They just cannot see eye to eye, as the saying goes, about "the things that matter." Moreover, these differences are most apt to develop about questions which arise after marriage—spending the family income, rearing the children, church attendance, education, friends, leisure-time activities.

What happens with a great many young people is something like this. They do meet and are attracted to each other on the basis of some common interest, like sports, music, the theater, etc. When they are told that like should mate with like, they promptly reply: "That is exactly what we are doing. We both are very much interested in amateur theatricals" (as an example). They assume that, since they have this one common and perhaps engrossing interest at the time, mutual interests in other things will follow. Unfortunately, this often does not follow. The questions that arise after marriage, and after parenthood, are very different from those that engross a couple before marriage. Especially does parenthood change family life, so much so that most married couples, after the coming of their children, repeatedly say: "What did we ever do before the children came?"

In this matter of mate selection, a good deal depends upon the measuring-stick which one applies at the moment one marries for excitement, to attract attention, to gain status, to establish new relations with some group, or to gratify one's craving for the unusual—whatever its psychiatric origins may have been—the choice of the different and the exotic has much to commend it. One can easily conjure up concrete situations to support a particular choice of this kind. It might be very interesting, for instance, for an American boy to marry a Bulgarian girl and exhibit her to his fellow graduate students among the intelligentsia at some urban university; or to bring an Egyptian husband into your circle of Bohemian friends; or to gain publicity, which life has thus far denied, by marrying or having an affair with a Hungarian "nobleman."

Most persons, however, marry with the expectation of lifelong happiness, so that differences in life values which appear after marriage are highly important. Confronted with such differences, many well-balanced mates will talk over their conflicts, will try to understand each other's point of view, and make concessions to each other. Laudable as this is said to be, it is well to remember Robert Henri's pithy comment that "all concession is lying," which may be elaborated by saying, "especially if it is about matters which we think are important." Moreover, concessions about important things over a generation are neither pleasant nor desirable. Obviously, even for the most poised and intelligent persons, such basic conflicts had best be avoided through wise mate selection.

Other couples will argue, perhaps frequently and heatedly, each seeking to convince the other. Some will interpret the unacceptable ideas of the other as unreasonable personal traits, as pointed out in Chapter 2, resulting in name-calling, personal depreciation of the other, and the like. Too few mates will see these differences as the natural result of varying life experiences in the backgrounds in which each has been reared. Our values, like our philosophies, grow out of our experiences. It seems logical, therefore, to devote the remainder of this chapter to some of the key background differences which prove important in marriage. Because so many of these are peculiar to this country as a result of our natural history, we shall speak first of our national background in this respect.

The Diversity That Is America

If the population of the United States were a homogeneous one, like that of Sweden, for example; or one where most people were of the same religious persuasion, like Spain; or where there were no marked economic or social class differentials, as in certain pioneer areas—most marriages would follow the principle of like marrying like. But these conditions do not obtain in the United States today, some of them very much not so.

Our population is a highly heterogeneous one. True, the 1950 Census shows but 6.7 per cent of the population as foreign-born white. Compared with the 9.9 per cent that is Negro, this seems to show that the foreign element is of almost negligible importance. Obviously, this is not true. Turning to the more satisfactory returns of the 1940 Census which reports data for the native born of foreign and mixed parents, based on a 5 per cent sample, we note that one out of six (17.5 per cent) of the population was native born of foreign or mixed parents, which, added to the foreign-born whites in that year, constituted 26.1 per cent of the total population. In the 1930 Census returns, this percentage was 32.5, and for 1920 it was 34.4 per cent.

A lengthwise view of the situation is necessary here. In 1890, the population of the United States in round figures was 63,000,000. From 1890 to 1924, a period of a single generation, a total of 22,500,000 immigrants were admitted legally into this country. The number of illegal entrants is not known, but it may have been quite large. From 1924 to 1950, despite marked changes in our immigration policy, approximately another 5,000,000 were admitted. This movement of the past two generations, virtually without parallel in human history for its mass nature, is equally unusual for the variety of peoples included. At least thirty national origin groups are represented in sizable proportions in our population.

Another aspect of the diversity of our population is its composition on the basis of religious affiliation. A total of 255 religious bodies are included in the last religious census (1953). There are twelve Protestant denominations with reported memberships each of more than 700,000; twenty-two with memberships of 100,000 or more. These include the Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Protestant Episcopal, Disciples of Christ, Congregational, Latter Day Saints, Evangelical, Reformed, Seventh-Day Adventist, Church of the Brethren, and Unitarian denominations, to make only a partial enumeration. Then there is the Roman Catholic church, including not quite 20 per cent of the reported church membership and a variety of divisions on a language basis. There are three distinct bodies within the Jewish group, nineteen bodies within the Eastern Orthodox church, and there are the Polish National Catholic church, the Buddhist, and the Mohammedan. In many cases these religious differences coincide with national origin differences, thus further cementing the distinctive character of many elements in the population. Such terms as Irish Catholic, German Lutheran, Russian Jewish, Ukrainian Orthodox, and English Episcopalian have become current coin in our linguistic realm.

Finally, in discussing the diversity of our population, one must face the reality of economic and social differences. These are the inevitable result of time as it winnows the more successful from the others. This time factor, so important in the development of class distinctions, is particularly significant when one considers historically the influx of these many different peoples with their diverse tongues and faiths and ways of living, for it explains one of the unique features of the American class system. Since different groups have come into the country at different times, some have had a longer time in which to succeed and to establish themselves. As a result, differences in economic achievement and social status often coincide with ethnic and religious differences. This means that class distinctions are reinforced by these other differences, thus giving a rigidity to the social class system which would not otherwise exist. Facts of this kind, so often ignored or overlooked, are very real, in spite of our emphasis upon the openness of our social class system, and they have very great meaning for many marriages. The American class system is a unique one which creates unique problems for marital adjustment.

Facts of the kind we have just cited explain, at least in some measure, why American marriage and marriage problems differ from those in various other countries. Our young people, from many ethnic, religious, and social backgrounds are meeting constantly in the come-and-go relations of school, work, and play. Moreover, changes in job and residence are frequent —unusually frequent in this country—and these multiply contacts with groups other than one's own. Large-scale studies have shown that in the age group seven to thirteen years more than one-third live in places other than where they were born.

The results are inevitable. Frequent and continuing contacts during the years before marriage with persons from different backgrounds lead to mixed marriages. And this is what is happening increasingly in this country. American boys and girls, and older persons too, are constantly crossing economic, ethnic, religious, and social lines in their choice of husbands and wives. Moreover, many people have come to accept this as evidence of the American creed, others are seeking to encourage it, and some are even insisting upon it as another "civil right." But there is another side to the story. Studies of family life have been accumulating evidence pointing the finger directly at the hazards of mixed backgrounds in marriage. Three types of such marriages, considered to be of particular importance, are selected for discussion.

Interfaith Marriages

Marriages between persons of different religious faiths constitute a large proportion of such mixed marriages. In fact, the term mixed marriage often is restricted to marriages of this kind. Strictly speaking, marriages between persons from any two different religious groups are mixed marriages, but those which have received most attention are the cases where the differences in faith and practice are quite marked. Thus a marriage between a Methodist and a Roman Catholic or between a Baptist and an Orthodox Jew has been emphasized in this connection rather than the cases where a Methodist marries a Presbyterian or a Congregationalist marries a Unitarian.

We do not know how many marriages combine different religious backgrounds of the kind to which we have referred, since information on religious affiliation is not required on applications for marriage licenses, except recently in the state of Iowa. Such information is obtained regularly on marriage and divorce records in Canada and various European and South American countries. Its lack on a nationwide scale in this country is a serious omission in our marriage data, and can perhaps only be explained as the result of a "leaning over backward" in our historic policy of religious toleration.

Some idea of the relative number of interfaith marriages can be obtained from two recent studies of limited scope. One, by Father John L. Thomas, a well-known Roman Catholic family sociologist, concludes, after examining the available data, that close to one-half of all Roman Catholics in this country have found their matrimonial mates in recent years outside of their church. Approximately three out of every five such cases are valid marriages, i.e., performed in compliance with the requirements of the church and sanctioned by it, while two out of every five are invalid marriages because they are not so performed and sanctioned. Obviously, marked variations from this over-all summary occur in different parts of the country. It might be added that about one-fifth of the nation's population is affiliated with the Roman Catholic church.

A second study of interfaith marriages involving members of the United Lutheran Church in America was made several years ago by Reverend Harold C. Letts, of the Lutheran Board of Social Missions, and the senior author of this volume. Data on 382 Lutheran congregations showed that, for the years 1946-1950, more than one-half (58 per cent) of the Lutherans who married found their mates outside of their church. Of all such Lutherans, one out of every five married a Roman Catholic, close to another fifth married non-church members, and about three-fifths married members of other Protestant churches. The percentage that married Jews and other non-Christians was very small.

If these studies are representative of the present situation in the United States—and it is believed that they are—it seems safe to conclude that about one-half of all church members who marry find their mates outside of their respective churches. Moreover, the proportion of such marriages has been increasing. Both of the studies just cited agree on this point. Father Thomas concludes that there has been a steady but gradual increase since 1910, and expects it to continue in the future.

Modern youth and the voice of experience, as expressed in the pronouncements of church leaders and the findings of family sociologists, tend to disagree on the nature and significance of interfaith marriages. Modern youth, thinking wishfully or rebelliously or both, speaks of differences in religious background as superficial, to be "solved" by the judicious exercise of cooperative tolerance. We are intelligent, we are broadminded, they say. We are tolerant and will respect each other's religion. John can go to his church and I'll go to mine. Or, better still, we will go to each other's church.

Over against such attitudes is the fact that every religious group of any size in this country has expressed its opposition to such marriages. The Jewish groups, with their experience for thousands of years as religiously distinct, have characterized mixed marriages as a menace since the days of the Book of Deuteronomy. Similarly, the Roman Catholic church has persistently voiced its opposition, early imposing upon its members specific requirements if such marriages are to be recognized by the church. These requirements, so far as Protestants are concerned, include the education of the children of these marriages as Roman Catholics, the protection of the Roman Catholic mate against interference with his worship, and his efforts in turn to convert his or her mate to Roman Catholicism. More recently, the Protestant churches have been falling in line, formulating, declaring, and strengthening their own demands upon their members.*

Certain critics charge that this attitude of churchmen is a selfish one, growing out of their fear that mixed marriages will result in leakage of membership. There is some basis for this charge because such leakage does result, often to a considerable extent. Studies made by competent scholars show that it takes place, not only from one church to another, but from church membership in toto, both among those contracting mixed marriages and among their children.

But churchmen have other reasons for their opposition. They know, as must be obvious to all, that any religion that has value and vitality expresses itself not only in ceremonial forms but in ways of living and thinking, in deeds and in values. Furthermore, the more vital a religion, the more true this is and, as a rule, the wider the range of acts and values that are involved. Since these differ, and often materially so, from one religion to another, the combination of two different ones in marriage, which is life's most intimate relationship, presents real obstacles for the personal development of the individual members of the family as well as for its happiness as a group. Every pastor, priest, and rabbi encounters the difficulties that result in marriage because of such differences, and this is the enduring basis of their apprehension concerning such marriages.

* For a more extended discussion of this and other aspects of the problem of interfaith marriages, the reader is referred to the authors' volume on this subject, entitled One Marriage, Two Faiths (New York: The Ronald Press Co., 1957).

More recently, students of family problems have been applying their scientific yardsticks in this area. In analyzing the nature of interfaith marriages, they have used the concept of culture as a tool. Culture is defined by them to mean the ways of life and the pattern of attitudes, values, and ways of thinking of a people. Thus they speak of the culture of the Japanese people, the French culture, or the culture of the Burmese.

Keeping this concept in mind, it becomes clear that Judaism is not merely a form of worship in the temple but a distinct culture, with a long history and many long-established and deeply ingrained characteristics. In this same sense, Roman Catholicism is a cultural system, as is Presbyterianism or any other established religion. Once this basic fact is grasped, a number of things about interfaith marriages become clear.

First, an interfaith marriage is really an intercultural marriage. It combines two people, in what is expected to be a life-long relationship, who have different ideas about many vital matters, who have many different values, and who are duly drawn to differing obligations, as well as accustomed to different forms of worship. Moreover, these differences are apt to be deeply ingrained, so much a part of ourselves as to seem as natural as the air we breathe. It is that way with other aspects of our culture, like our political life, our speech, our ideas about clothing, or our dietary habits. If our religious culture differs in any of these other aspects, it is in the direction of being more deeply implanted and often more emotionally tinged.

Secondly, these are matters which differ, not only between persons who are actively identified with some particular church or religious group, but between all persons who have been reared in homes of some kind of religious persuasion. Many persons are Protestant, Roman Catholic, or Jewish in their character and outlook upon life even though they may be lukewarm or even rebellious toward their historic faith. In particular is this true of young people in their marrying years. Over and over, the rebellious skeptics of eighteen or nineteen develop into the devout fathers and mothers of thirty, proud of their traditional background, which by that time has become a symbol of their self-respect and their family status. This is one of the facts which studies of the life history of individuals and families make abundantly clear. Religious coloring is deeply pervasive, often operating silently and subtly, and appearing in many shades as life situations change.

Thirdly, marriage involves relationships that are unique in the field of human association. It is necessary to emphasize this for two main reasons. One is to meet a criticism that has been voiced against the approach we are making here. Aren't we constantly meeting, working, and associating with people who are the products of different cultures, and particularly of different religious cultures? Why not in marriage? The answer is that marriage relationships differ from those in work, play, discussion, business, and the like. As has been said, marriage is life's most intimate and embracive relationship. It is also established with the expectation that it will be of lifelong duration: "The twain shall be one flesh," and "until death do them part." A second distinguishing thing about marriage as a human relationship is that it involves the sexual process, which every society seeks to regulate and protect, and the reproductive process, without which no society could continue to exist. This means that the marriage relationship carries its own criteria of selection of those with whom it is to be established.

Fourth, the sex aspect of interfaith marriages has its own particular significance. Unfortunately, most discussions of interfaith marriages speak of sex only as it pertains to birth control, customarily when one of the marital partners is a Roman Catholic. And this is a difficult problem in many cases, creating tension, disagreement, separation, and even divorce. The role of sex in any marriage, however, is a much broader one than that of contraception and reproduction. It is a pervasive aspect of the marital relationship by which and through which the married pair develops, expresses, and enriches its emotional relationship/This means, among other things, that the attitude toward sex and the emotional responses of the marital partners to each other are highly important, and these are derived in large measure from religious sources. The studies of Dr. Alfred Kinsey and his associates throw much light on this, and led them to conclude that there is nothing in the English-American social structure, which has had more influence upon present-day patterns of sexual behavior than the religious backgrounds of that culture. Religious background seems particularly important in determining the sexual attitudes and responses of women.

Finally, the cultural differences in interfaith marriages involve not only the relationships between the married pair, but also the development of their children and ultimately of their children's children. Not infrequently, such marriages have their own meaning for the kinsfolk on one or both sides of the house. It will help clear thinking in this connection, as well as in regard to most problems of family life, if we remember that a family is more than a sidewise union of the married pair; it is also a lengthwise union of two family streams, each with its own biological and social history. Few married people live in a vacuum so far as their kinsfolk are concerned. It is only that many young people think they do at a fleeting period in their lives.

What do family sociologists find in their studies of inter-faith marriages? The following groups of facts are clear.

1. Interfaith marriages are often made by persons who are of the rebellious type or who are in a state of rebellion at the time. This may be rebellion against their parents, their kinfolk, their racial or national group origin, their traditional culture, or society in general. To marry across the line becomes a symbol of their defiance, consciously exalted by them as  evidence  of  their   "emancipation."   Subsequently—often rather soon—they may pass out of this stage, to find that their roots go deeper than they realized.

2. In the case of interfaith marriages, the details of arrangement for the wedding and the establishment of a new household are apt to create tensions and conflicts between the persons closely associated in their backgrounds, particularly their families and relatives. The religious affiliations of many families are a matter of family pride, even though their church activities may be quite limited. The Blank family has been Baptist, Lutheran, or Roman Catholic, as the case may be, for generations. Its family history has been interwoven with that of its particular church. And to have its descendant marry into another religious group comes to partake somewhat of the nature of treason. Its blood stream is being diverted into alien channels. All this has nothing to do with the personal qualities of the mates concerned, but the situation thus created is not favorable for the personal adjustments which every couple must make in marriage. Many interfaith marriages stumble or fall on the roadblocks of kinsfolk interference.

3. In the close association that marriage involves, the mates in an interfaith marriage discover the meaning of the cultural differences that exist between them. All marriages involve problems of adjustment between the married pair; those in interfaith marriages are more numerous and more difficult. "Should I marry Eve in spite of our religious differences?" a young man once asked an unlettered sage. "Son," came the reply, "once you get married, you'll learn that there are many things for you and your wife to fight about. If you marry Eve, there'll be twice as many. Now take your choice."

4. Difficulties in the choice of mutual friends for the interfaith couple may arise. Professor Carle C. Zimmerman, of arvard University, and his associate, Dr. Carlfred B. Broderick, who have studied this matter of family friendships, have shown that religion, family income, and regional origin are the chief bases for the selection of friends. They have shown, too, that having mutual friends is very important for successful family life. Couples who have made interfaith marriages and have shared their experiences with us speak very emphatically about this matter of mutual friends, clearly revealing that, when the cultural gap between the married pair is wide, considerable "adjusting" is necessary. Some of the possible dangers are that the couple will have few close family friends or that each mate will have his or her own circle. Neither alternative is desirable, either for family relations or for the development of the children.

5. The family life of the interfaith couple is apt to be affected because their respective churches set up opposing expectations and values in their so-called private lives. Not only will they differ in their ideas about the extent to which the church has authority in these matters, but also in the range of behavior that is involved. Commonly found issues include regularity of church attendance, Sabbath observance, religious holidays, dietary requirements, distribution of family income, recreational pursuits, sex relations, and family planning. Translated into the minutiae of family living, these are areas which ramify widely and deeply into family relations.

6. There is a time perspective in these, as in all marriages. Marriage is not just for today; it is expected to last through many tomorrows. There is a family history just as there is a life history, and both of these are particularly important in the case of interfaith marriages. Adjustments seemingly satisfactory at twenty may be rejected at forty. What were minor differences on the honeymoon become vital issues ten years later. Oddities at twenty-five are intolerable at forty. Time creates as well as solves problems.

7. Most marriages produce children, and the children in turn create some of the most difficult problems that arise in interfaith unions. These may begin with the problem of conception. When? How often? The answers involve one's religious philosophy, as well as the whole attitude toward sex behavior. Then there is the question of the child's baptism. Where and by whom? The decision is apt to be indicative of the subsequent pattern of child-rearing. Later the decision concerning the child's schooling arises. Which shall it be? Public, parochial, or other group-identified school? This involves not only an educational choice, but the selection of the child's friends and the mother's association with the mothers of the other children. Next comes the time when children are confirmed,  instructed,  converted, or otherwise  initiated  into church membership. What is to be the child's religious and moral training? How is it to be colored, denominationally speaking? Or is the whole matter to be avoided in large measure as a concession to compromise between the parents?

Most parents identify themselves, at least to some extent, with their children, and questions like those we have just cited become very vital: the better the parent, the more vital the issue is apt to be. Thus arise deep-seated conflicts, resulting in quarreling, bitterness, sniping at each other, and other evidences of dissension between the parents. It is out of such situations that various forms of family disorganization develop —divorce, separation, desertion, personal schematization (you go your way and I'll go mine), sullen resignation of one mate, or impulsive outbursts of antagonism.

Equally, if not more, serious are the effects upon the children. The basic fact in interfaith marriages, so far as the child is concerned, is that his family background is divided. This in turn often becomes the fruitful source of inner conflicts, leading to neuroses; to continuing states of indecision, with the nervous exhaustion that accompanies "that hung feeling"; to decisions in favor of the one parent and the haunting pangs of guilt feelings concerning the other parent; or a pathetic wandering in a cultural no-man's land. Nor are the children in these homes apt to develop a friendly attitude toward religion because to them it may become the cause of all their troubles. "Religion," writes a child from an interfaith marriage, "seemed always to be present as a great and awful question upon which adults did not agree, and upon which they would brook no discussion."

How serious are difficulties of this kind? What does the record show here? Fortunately, a good deal of evidence bearing on these questions from widely scattered sources is now available. Two sociologists, Drs. Thomas P. Monahan and William M. Kephart, have studied the desertion and non-support records of 1,029 Philadelphia native white primary-marriage families for the year 1950. They found that the highest rates were in families where the wife was Roman Catholic and the husband Protestant. Slightly lower were the rates when the wife was Protestant and the husband Roman Catholic. Other types of mixed marriages showed a lower rate of desertion and nonsupport.

Divorce and separation rates are another index by which the importance of religious differences can be seen. Between two and three times as many marriages result in divorce and separation in Roman Catholic-Protestant unions than when the couples are of the same faith. This conclusion is based upon studies made by Judson Landis, Howard Bell, and Ashley Weeks, including a total of 24,184 cases. The Landis study shows a rate four to five times as high when a Roman Catholic father is married to a Protestant mother. Such marriages seem particularly apt to lead to serious conflicts.

This evidence on the measurable results of interfaith marriages is significant, to be sure, but it is by no means the whole story. Many marriages, restlessly uneasy or writhing in the agony of unhappiness, never reach the informal solution of desertion or the legal dissolution of divorce. These are matters that cannot be measured by any thermometer which statistical ingenuity has devised.

In summary, lest we be misunderstood, we do not wish to imply that all interfaith marriages are doomed to conflict and unhappiness, and that the personality development of all the children born to them will be scarred, but in twenty years of study of such marriages we have never found one in which there was not a constant awareness of family problems of some kind and degree as a result, and a continuing search for answers to them.

International-Origin Marriages

Another kind of intermarriage which combines cultural backgrounds with varying degrees of difference is that between persons of different national origin. An example of such a marriage, with rather marked differences, would be that of a person of Swedish origin to one of southern Italian descent. In such a case the person of Swedish ancestry would likely have grown up in a family which thought long engagements, late marriage, a single standard of morals, the secular control of marriage, democratic relations between husband and wife, and scientific child-rearing to be natural and proper values in family life. The southern Italian mate, by way of contrast, would probably have been reared to consider early marriage, paternal dominance, the double standard of conduct, the relative seclusion of wives, the husband's possessiveness, and the church's control of marriage to be "human nature." Obviously, differences in attitudes of this kind do not make for family harmony through the years.

We are reminded here of the comments of a sage in family life on marriages between persons from two different national backgrounds well known to him through the years. Let us designate them as A and B, respectively. In national background A, the accepted attitude is that the husband rules the roost and the wife plays a submissive role; in B, it is the wife who tends to be in the saddle. "I have observed through the years," says our friend, the sage, "that when the husband is from A and the wife from B, the result is an endless battle; when the wife is from A and the husband from B, the result is a mousy ineffectiveness, with each mate waiting for the other to take the lead."

For a number of years we have studied in some detail the family culture patterns of the leading national origin groups in our cosmopolitan population, and find that, while they agree in many of the more overt features of family life, they differ materially in many respects as well as in the minutiae of family living by which they express their common agreements. In other words, there is a Swedish, German, Italian, Irish, English, French, Spanish, and Hungarian family culture pattern, each one distinctive in many of its features and values. This is but saying what one hears constantly as current coin in the conversational realm when husbands and wives are discussed.

Perhaps the critical reader will argue at this point that, while such differences existed when these respective elements migrated to this country, the melting influences of the American "pot" have changed all this. It might seem logical to suppose so, but actually this is much less true than most people suppose. While people change quickly in many respects when they migrate to a new country, and particularly so in the more observable aspects of living, in matters of their inner and more intimate life changes occur much more slowly. The invisible aspects of culture are very persistent.

Let us take language as an example. In 1940, the United States Census Bureau gathered native-tongue statistics, i.e., data on the language principally spoken in the home during the years of early childhood. This report showed that 19.1 per cent of the total population that reported such data grew up in homes in which some language other than English was the principal one spoken. The total number of such persons was 21,996,240. Of these, four-fifths (80.2 per cent) were found in eight linguistic groups. In the order of their numerical importance, these were German, Italian, Polish, Spanish, Yiddish, French, Swedish, and Norwegian. Less than two-fifths (38 per cent) were foreign born, about one-half (48.7 per cent) were native born of foreign or mixed parentage, and 13.3 per cent were native-born white of native-born white parents. The total number of the last named was 2,929,060. This last-named element in particular shows the cultural persistence of which we speak. About three-fourths of these almost three million Americans were reared in German-, French-, or Spanish-speaking homes. These three represent for the most part descendants of long-established national groups —the Germans in Pennsylvania, the French in Louisiana, and the Spanish in New Mexico.

How many marriages take place between the many national origin groups in this country, with family cultural patterns sufficiently different to be significant in this connection, we do not know. In recent years it has become unfashionable, even in so-called scientific circles, to gather facts about national origin groups as such, particularly in the second and third generation of their lives here. One can only regret this, and insist that it is a shortsighted decision, however "socially minded" its motives may be.

For some idea of the possible extent of international-origin marriages in this country, we have to go back a number of years when such data still were available. Roughly one out of three marriages in the late nineteen-thirties in New York State, not including New York City, was between persons of different ethnic stocks. This conclusion is based upon a tabulation of 41,849 marriages, published by the senior author some years ago. It is believed that such a proportion is fairly representative for the northeastern section of the country, at least. Moreover, such marriages are steadily increasing, according to comparative tabulations, which we have made.

Marriage between ethnic groups is looked upon with favor by many persons because they consider them as so many evidences of the American melting-pot at work. However this may be, we are concerned with them here as marriages, with their success or failure as such. Students of family problems have paid scant attention to international-origin marriages as such. This is rather unfortunate. Evidence from our own collection of family histories shows many of them to be problem-provoking. Among published family histories, a fascinating glimpse into the life of an international-origin family can be found in the autobiography of the late Ely Culbertson, onetime widely known bridge expert. His father was an engineer from Titusville, Pennsylvania; his mother, the daughter of a Cossack army officer in the time of the Czars of Russia. Their married life, as seen through the eyes of one of their three sons, was a bewildering mixture of tender personal relations and complete cultural misunderstanding. Each found the other a person of peculiar habits, bizarre likes and dislikes, with codes of conduct which to the other seemed quite incomprehensible. Confusing for the children also was the fact that when they lived in Titusville they were referred to as "those Russian children" and when living in the Ukraine as "those American children."*

In lesser degree, one sees many of these same complications when marriage unites the second generation of different national origins, as in the case of Madeline and Joseph. They were married with all of the solemnities of a Roman Catholic church wedding and with much celebration by their families and friends. Madeline was the daughter of French-born parents. Her father held a responsible position with a French cosmetics company. Joseph was Irish-reared and Irish-minded. Both had been raised in stable and happy families, and they were very much in love with each other.

The first months of their married life were a time of idyllic happiness. Both were slipping out from under parental control for the first time. Their sexual adjustment, as later reported, was satisfactory. Their apartment, while small, was furnished cozily under the guidance of Madeline's mother.

* Ely Culbertson, The Strange Lives of One Man (Philadelphia: John C. Winston Co., 1940).

The first signs of conflict, curiously enough, arose over their Catholicism. Joseph was zealous in his devotion, to a degree which at times has led to the observation that "the Irish are more Catholic than the Pope." Madeline's religion was more moderate, like that of her parents. She didn't like the priest in Joseph's church, she told her parents, who spoke in turn of the high quality of the average priest in France, in comparison with "these ignorant young Irish priests we find in America."

Other differences were not long in following. Their respective families had little in common. Each had retained enough Old World customs to make his ways of living quite different. Gradually Madeline visited her folks by herself, and Joseph did the same with his. Following visits to their parental homes each would detect a certain aloofness, if only for a time, in the other. Joseph was clannish, and felt that Madeline ought to spend all of her time with him and his Irish family and friends. Next, they became conscious of differences in what each thought were the other's household duties—attitudes again reinforced by their respective families.
 
There never was a time of decisive clash. They just slowly drifted apart. They have continued to live with each other. There have been no children. Madeline has seen to this. Joseph has been disappointed and resentful about this. "My seed is going to waste," he said bitterly. When not at work, or visiting a small coterie of relatives and friends, he goes to bed with several books. Sometimes he goes to bed on Friday after dinner and stays there until time for Mass on Sunday morning. Madeline, once her domestic duties have been attended to, spends much time with her folks and a few longtime friends of French extraction. "With them, I really feel at home," she says. Here there is no divorce, only the continuing unhappiness of being mismated.

Interclass Marriages

Marriages between persons from different social class backgrounds are a third main group of intermarriages which must be considered in any comprehensive study of American family problems. To appreciate their importance, it is necessary to understand clearly what is meant by the term social class. As a scientific tool, and as we are using it in this volume, the term is not a snobbish label but a sort of descriptive shorthand to indicate a way of life. It is, in other words, a cultural term, using the word culture in the sense that we have been using it. In this sense every social class is a kind of cultural world, having its own way of life. Stated as simply as possible, when we speak of social class differences we mean that people work, spend, live, play, enjoy, read, think, and behave in general in different ways, and to generalize these into certain over-all patterns we use the term social class.

Interclass marriages, then, are intercultural marriages in the same sense that interfaith and international-origin marriages are. In fact, they are more so, both in degree and range of cultural differences. Class patterns are as broad and pervasive as behavior patterns can be, they are deeply ingrained, and tenaciously adhered to, representing both a habit and a judgment, and in an additional sense a compromise as to how life should be lived.

No one knows how many interclass marriages there are: first, because the class status of those marrying is nowhere recorded, and second, because the differences involved vary so much in degree that their number would depend on where in the scale of differences one would draw the line. In a later chapter on the American open-class system, we shall point out that marriage is used at times as a status-achieving device—that is, one marries to raise one's social class standing. This is often spoken of as marrying up. One sees marriages of this kind often enough to realize that they constitute a definite part of the American family picture.

Reading both in and between the lines of our case histories, two aspects seem to characterize these marriages. One is a certain calculated "coloring." They involve, in varying degrees, the calculated purpose of raising status, even though the manifestations of this are not immediately apparent. Stated simply, this means that such marriages are made, by one of the mates at least, in order to get, rather than to give or to share. This basic interest may become in time the key to the entire pattern of marital behavior. Second, it would seem, in other cases, that there is a strong physical attraction, at least on the part of one of the mates. In fact, the venerable sage whom we consult in these matters insists that physical (sexual) attraction is the key to most marriages that cross a distinct cultural line. He further suggests that the reader can check the validity of this generalization by examining his or her own attractions of this kind.

Very little attention has been given to the problems of interclass marriages. It is not a popular subject. Moreover, it is a difficult one. There is a real and constant danger of being misunderstood when one refers to this matter. People are as sensitive about their own class status and anything that may seem a reflection upon it as they are prone to relish reflections upon classes other than their own.

Moreover, many interclass marriages continue with some show of success. Several reasons for this are obvious. Marked physical attraction, and satisfaction, has its own meaning for married life. Again, many such marriages are made in the face of contrary advice and admonition; and many a person who crossed the class line in marriage with subsequent regret will exhaust every ingenuity to cover up. Pride makes many of us live with our mistakes.

That some interclass marriages terminate sooner or later in divorce, separation, or desertion, is a matter of common observation. In other instances, years of bickering, secret unhap-piness, or lack of common family life may result. From our case material we select brief summaries to illustrate situations of these latter-named kinds.

Helen and Jack Trenton have been married for seven years and have two children. Helen is upper-middle class. Jack is upper-lower at best. Their married life has been one long-continued battle, verbal for the most part but descending at times to physical expression. Periodically, Helen packs up the children and goes to the home of her parents, while Jack keeps the apartment and takes his meals with his mother. Each time thus far, Helen has returned to him. She intimates that Jack has a strong physical appeal, and it seems likely that the desire to resume sex relations is uppermost. To her parents and friends, she justifies her return as being for the sake of the children. As for them, they have been rather kicked from pillar to post in the course of these battles. When Helen is angry with Jack, she tells the children that their father is no good, lazy, shiftless, and doesn't want the nicer things in life. When they are with Helen's parents, they reinforce all this, and add adjectives of their own. To Helen and the children, Jack is always on trial as a person: they do not realize that it is his class pattern that they reject.

Henry and Mabel Post have been married eleven years. Henry's background was upper-middle class, shading into upper class; Mabel came from a working-class family that might be labeled as upper-lower. Henry's friends find Mabel "common" and "boring": they just "don't get to see Henry any more." Mabel says that Henry's friends patronize her, and she is glad to see little of them. Her own friends have gradually ceased to come to visit the Posts because they do not "feel welcome" when Henry is about. In recent years, the Posts have had few friends. Their ten-year-old daughter, and only child, tells her mother that she has no "family friends." She is at an age when she reaches out for family as a security need. She is aware that other children do things with their families and with other families, and it is true that there is much of this kind of socializing among the families of the children who go to her school. Within the past year, she has not wanted to go to school, and lately she has made friends with another girl whose father is dead and whose mother is working. These two girls have played truant several times.

In the Willis-Torr family, too, the husband has the higher social status. Ralph Willis is an attorney. He was graduated from a well-known university and took his law degree at another university law school. His family, while of moderate circumstances, has held an honored place in the community, functioning successfully at the professional level for three generations. During his second year at law school, Ralph became engaged to a girl of excellent family and a social status equal or superior to his own. Subsequently, his fiancee tired of waiting for a young attorney to establish himself, and eloped with an older man who was succeeding in business. Ralph was crushed for a time, but pulled himself together and went on with his legal practice. He lived at home, conforming to his family and class patterns. This meant associating with the right people, attending the Presbyterian church regularly, observing the community's moral code, and living comfortably but unostentatiously, and always within one's means. During the next several years, most of his friends who were still single now married and established families. In the course of his law practice, he came to meet Jane Torr through her father and married her after a brief courtship. A child was born about six months after their marriage.

Jane was the daughter of a genial saloon keeper. She lived in a section of the city whose name quickly identified its residents as lower class. She had taken a commercial course in the local high school, but her father had frowned upon her employment after graduation. Jane was a Roman Catholic, but not unduly devout. She was pleasing to the eye, but her dress somewhat departed from the limits of good taste. The life she had known comprised that of a working-class area, partly upper-lower, but more largely lower-lower, class; and that which she knew most intimately was that which centered in the friendly camaraderie of her father's saloon. Her idea of being well dressed was to "knock someone's eye out"; her speech was sprightly, inclined to bluntness, and a bit salty at times. Her idea of success in life was for her husband to obtain large fees, to live so as to advertise one's prosperity, and to have a good time. Specifically, the latter meant a lot of guests, good eating, and drinking.

After their marriage, Ralph purchased a home located in a somewhat isolated spot some miles out of town. Jane has had four children in seven years, and serious marital difficulties have been avoided thus far. The crucial test of this marriage will come probably when the children are older.

We have selected interfaith, international-origin, and inter-class marriages to highlight one simple basic fact: that a marriage between two persons of the same kind, meaning with the same background, generally the same attitudes, the same interests, and above all, the same values, has more promise of lasting success than one in which there are important differences in these respects. Two people culturally the same, in love with each other, will find married life as comfortable as two pairs of old shoes. This is the verdict of experience and of modern marriage studies. And it makes sense, doesn't it?

There is an old proverb, reportedly of Chinese origin, which holds that every boy should marry the girl who lives across the street from him. Whenever this is mentioned to young people, it is apt to provoke a smile because it may call to mind some particularly unsuitable boy or girl who actually has lived across the street. We hasten to add that no one has meant this proverb to be taken literally. Rather is it a sly Chinese way of stating an important principle in concrete and epigrammatic form. What is meant is that every boy should marry a girl who comes from the same background as he does, whose parents are in the same general circumstances as his parents are, whose parents as well as the principals themselves have known each other over some considerable period of time. In other words, it is a pithy way of saying that like should marry like.

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