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Marriage: Making sense of Nepal's complex culture

'It might sound unusual to talk about caste as being part of the church but it is the truth of our context'
Marriage: Making sense of Nepal's complex culture

A Hindu marriage ritual among the Newari community in Nepal, in this file photo. (Photo by AFP) 

Published: June 29, 2016 10:28 AM GMT
Updated: June 29, 2016 10:30 AM GMT

Marriage is a bond, where united as one, both parents have the responsibility to educate their children and transmit the faith to them. This is an important practice of Christian life.

This might look simple for Christian couples but what happens in the case of a mixed marriages were couples are from different religions?

Each society has its own reality. In Nepal, Christians make up just 1.42 percent of the population. This is not even half a million people. The Catholic community is smaller still, with only around 8,000 Catholics living in Nepal.

While canon law addresses the issue of mixed marriages between the baptized and non-baptized, there is silence about marriages between different castes and tribes.

In Nepal there are officially 125 castes listed in the 2011 census. We can imagine these castes are further divided into thousands of sub-castes. These caste and sub-castes are hierarchical. It does not matter what religion or ethnicity you belong to, caste-based discrimination remains.

Even though the caste system is understood as a Hindu system, this practice is hidden and embedded within the Nepalese Christian community, especially when it comes to marriage.

It might sound unusual to talk about caste as being part of the church but it is the truth of our context. It happens as the majority of Christians convert from different cultures and religions where caste-based distinctions exist.

I clearly recall priests, during the Pauline year (2009) seminar in Katmandu, sharing about caste based selection of partners, especially by parents, in the case of arranged marriages in local parishes. The same goes with other denominations.

Another reality of the Nepalese church is that even though people convert to a new faith, they are not able to leave behind their old caste-based cultural practices. There might not be physical segregation but psychological differences remains.

Living one's faith in families that have more than one religion is complex. In many families, it wouldn't be possible to leave all kinds of cultural practices behind due to the family structure.

Such complications can occur during a birth, marriage and death to name a few.

In the case of marriage, it will often have to go through two sets of rituals; one is the blessing inside the church and the other is a set of rituals outside of the Christian community.

For birth, family controversies can arise over cultural procedures of the newborn baby.  

A more complex situation can arise at funerals. People like me, being the only Catholic in the family, often experience great confusion about what role they should play in the funeral ceremony.

There might be some basic guidance about marriage and birth, but the church does not give any clue about how one should take part in the funeral ceremonies of other faiths.

Therefore, inter-faith and inter-caste marriages are two different realities of the Nepalese Christian community. It is not possible for us to avoid mixed marriages in our small community.

When young people look around for their life partner, they can't find someone suitable from their community and this leads them to search for someone outside of their community. Mixed marriages happen in the end.

This is probably not only about our community being small but that societies today are more open and accepting of people from different backgrounds marrying each other.

We might have too few good examples of mixed marriages. We often observe the cultural problems between spouses and among their family members.

But if such marriages are unavoidable, we need to consider what the best response of the church would be to strengthen these bonds.

One should also ask how such marriages fit into the context of the propagation of faith in a country like Nepal.

The church expects Catholic parents to raise their children in the church's sacraments.

In the absence of a bishop's commission and marriage court, it might not be easy for Nepal to handle all the cases of mixed marriages and other complexities.

In the case of mixed marriages, for the family's well-being, it is very important for both baptized and non-baptized parties to mingle across their religious cultures.

Children often get confused about which religion to follow. The church may expect children to grow up receiving the sacraments but questions might be asked about the freedom of their choice to do this.

Canon law provides flexible conditions for Catholics to do their best without causing harm to family relations.

Cultural complexities might be more common in indigenous and tribal Christian communities. Some of these communities practice forced marriage, polygamy and marriages between cousins. What if they are Catholic by faith?

How does canon law go together with local cultural law? Who educates local people about complex canon law in simple, easy to understand language?

On the other hand we must be clear that for those who are strong in faith, marriage is not merely a legal affair but a spiritual matter.

Hence it is largely the responsibility of parishioners or groups of laity to maintain the social and spiritual environment so that they feel they are a valid member of the church community.

The church in Nepal is lacking in its understanding about marriage, birth, death and many other social and cultural aspects we deal with.

Such poor guidance might have been one of the factors causing family separations. Therefore, education should be given frequently. Church rules, regulations and some of the fundamental parts of canon should be prepared in simple local language to educate people.

Prakash Khadka is a peace and human rights activist as well as the Nepal representative of Pax Romana, the international Catholic movement for intellectual and cultural affairs.

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