You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
Write about the following topic.
Nowadays more people get married to someone of a different culture than they ever did. Why is this happening? Discuss both benefits and demerits of this trend.
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Write at least 250 words.
Sample Answer:
Traditionally people get married to someone of the same culture, religion and country. But marrying in a different culture has become common and socially accepted these days. Technological advancements, changes in social belief, and freedom for choosing a life partner among young have accelerated this trend and many of these cross-cultural marriages indeed are working too well.
To begin with, people, these days, use technology to make friends across the border. An increasing number of people also study abroad and live in a cross-cultural environment. This has broken their outdated social belief to a great extent, and they have a broader perspective of life and marriage. Moreover, young people have greater freedoms in choosing their life partners unlike in the past when parents primarily picked a bride or bridegroom for someone. Modern society also seems to have accepted this freedom and welcome marriage beyond the known boundary.
Cross-cultural marriage has several benefits. People have different inherent features and strength based on their culture, race, geographic location and family and it is often noticed that children of such cross-cultural couples are stronger and have diverse capabilities. Two people from totally different cultures, when get married, take time to understand each other and this often strengthens their conjugal relationship. They learn about other’s tradition, culture, belief, language and this opens up an entirely new world for them. Such marriage often teaches people to become more tolerant of other races, culture and custom and it often helps people to discover themselves from a neutral point of view rather than the biased view of inherent culture and tradition.
This type of marriage has some disadvantages too. Family, friends and relatives often have misconceptions of such couples and keep their distance. Mixed marriages often force people to accept an alien way of life that they cannot completely cope with. Children in such families often find it hard to adhere to a particular culture and end up adopting a pseudo-cultural identity. Finally, such marriage often ends in a bitter experience as couples fail to understand each other properly.
To conclude, mix-cultural marriages are nowadays more accepted in our society than in the past. Social changes, technology and people’s freedom to choose a life partner have greatly made it possible. Despite some problems, this type of marriage is working too well to consider it a mainstream trend.