By Aishwarya Vasanth & Soma Dutta

In today’s world, Globalizing is leading the greater ship, and is not intending to stop, ever. In such a place, Trans- National Marriage, a direct product of globalization, is not something uncommon. So basically, trans national marriage is when people from two different countries decide to get married! This sort of marriage evolves out of various different reasons! Some of them are individual and some are business purpose.
Love, is of course one of the major reasons for cross- country marriages!
A person visiting the host country simply falls in love with the other person, with the culture of that place. Along with these, a simple attraction towards foreign lands also encourages this sort of marriage, which can be seen in the case of those who love to travel and discover places of their taste!
Not only that, regard or deep feeling for a certain cultural and religious practice can also be the reason!
Besides this, of course there are business reasons. There come various reasons under this one.
In order to get a permanent citizenship for a desired job or anything else, marrying a citizen of that country proves to be a solution in many cases. We can see this in the movie “The Proposal”, in which, when New York editor Margaret (Sandra Bullock) faces deportation to Canada, she convinces her assistant Andrew(Ryan Reynolds) to marry her in return for a promotion.
Then we have business-deal marriages or political marriages, where a marriage between two families shows the partnership between the two companies.
 Sounds primitive, right? This was there during the ancient times also, where the king would marry off his daughter to the neighboring kingdom in order to maintain a healthy relation between the provinces.
For instance, to establish a healthy political tie between the Mughals and Rajputanas, Mariam-uz-Zamani, a born Hindu-Rajput princess was offered in marriage to Akbar by her father, Raja Bharmal of Amber in the year of 1562.

Now, like every other thing, a trans-national marriage too has both pros and cons. Well, mostly, it depends upon the person’s perspective, how they take it. But let’s list down all the possible merits and demerits.

MERITS

When two people with completely different backgrounds are tied down together, a diffusion takes places. Ideologies from one set of culture mixes up with the other set, thus eventually, diversifying their mind! Cultural diffusion is why many cultures around the world share similarities.

Because of the diversification, it also polishes each other for a better shine!

Few practices of Culture A might not be right for the society, and that’s where culture B comes into play. Thus diffusion of two different culture can possibly bring the best out of them, and rinse away the unnecessary matters.

Though it is not an outcome of cross-country marriage, but because of colonization only, the practice of child marriage and ‘Sati Pratham’, which prevailed in the Hindu customs, was abolished, thus opening bigger opportunities for all the girls.

This also reduces the chances of social discrimination for the future generation.
Not only this, the mind also becomes more flexible, thus making space for newer opportunities. People learn how to live with and manage different situations of life! A combination of two different sets of minds can lead to beautiful things!  

DEMERITS

Even though diffusion is good, but what about the next generation? Which culture do they follow? That’s a point to think about! Suppose an Indian and an American are married, should their kid bow down and greet elders or should they hug and handshake with elders? Should they focus more onto the society or should they give more attention to the individual aspect?

Though this might not be applicable for all the cases, but they are not to be neglected also!
Along with this, what about the roots or the origin? They belong to which roots?
Because of trans- national marriage there is also a chance that people might lose their originality. Everything will be just a mix up.

On one hand two different cultures can polish each other, but on the other hand it can also lead to a clash. Being habituated to our native practices, it is very difficult to suddenly accept dissimilar habits.

And at times this can lead to a clash between partners.
A very typical, yet cliché example- Suppose a western girl marries an Indian boy. Generally, as seen in most of the cases in India, the whole family gets too much involved in the marital life of the individuals. As this is quite different from the western culture, the girl might feel crowded with the constant involvement of family and relatives and this might lead to a fight between the married couple.

Thus, the clashing of cultures can create serious issues!
 

But whatever might be the demerits, this practice is quite popular in today’s time. To be honest, it solely depends on the individual how they deal with the issues. There are two options, either you give up, or you fight!
However, isn’t this an interesting concept? Growing up in a certain environment, and whoosh! Suddenly you are in a different world!

P.S : As two different minds have written this article, we decided to add our own opinions about the concept of ‘Trans- National Marriage’

Aishwarya Vasanth– “I am not in support of Trans- National Marriages. Let’s consider the case of our country. India is still a developing country that has not achieved the heights of development yet. During this time, emigration of our people to another country is like losing an asset, something we can’t afford right now. From my opinion, Trans- National Marriage is not necessary.”

Soma Dutta– “I believe that Trans- National Marriage is a beautiful concept. Right now, we need to transcend the concept of ‘this is mine, that is yours’. Through this only we’ll come to understand the needs of each other. Trans- National Marriage is a step toward it. When two people from different countries marry, they realize that they are filled with so many prejudices. So, through this way we are actually sweeping out all the stereotype thoughts which all of us have, thus making the world a better place, in a way.”