Interfaith Marriage
Although you will be hard pressed to find a widespread and long-lived hard culture that condones interfaith marriages between a female of their faith and a male of another faith without extensive rituals that ensure the man has “really” converted, most cultures permit men to marry outside their culture without much hullabaloo.[[98]](#_ftn98) That this cultural heuristic evolved almost universally at the cross-cultural level heavily implies that men typically set the culture their kids adopt (at least in a historical context).
The Parsi are so extreme in this practice that the Bombay High Court actually concluded that a Parsi can only legally be a Parsi if they have a Zoroastrian father and a converted Parsi mother.[[99]](#_ftn99) This strict structure explains in part why their numbers are crashing so quickly. A culture’s spousal acceptance policy must walk a thin line between maintaining cultural intergenerational fidelity (which is higher the stricter you are) and allowing for the growth through outsider conversion (which is higher when restrictions are lax).
The question when creating a new culture is: “How do you ensure it does not get wiped out by my kids’ spouses’ cultures while still encouraging them to marry outsiders?” The fortunate answer for us is that we live at a point in history in which cultures have either become so wishy-washy through pop-cultural degradation or so brittle as a result of illogical rigidity in the face of overwhelming evidence that it will not be hard for our kids to find partners who are willing to abandon their inherited culture for one more intentionally designed or reinforced (i.e. any Index culture).
The real challenge lies in ensuring that spouses are enthusiastic about maintaining their adopted culture intergenerationally. A saying we have in our family goes: “You don’t get points for having and raising successful kids; that’s easy—you only know you’ve succeeded when your kids in turn raise children of their own who are also successful and fulfilled.”
The Index is designed to welcome in outsiders as it systematically incorporates appreciated and useful aspects of outsiders’ birth cultures into the new Houses they create with Index partners. However, this flexibility may also reduce outsiders’ dedication to elements of their adopted culture. How can we ensure outsiders who join the Index through partnership are enthusiastic about raising kids with Houses’ more idiosyncratic traditions?
The Index encourages the following practices, which may help:
- When someone is dating an Index member, they are encouraged to meet with their House’s family for the first time without their date. Simone did this with my family and it made a big impression on her—it demonstrated to her that she was welcomed by my family not just because she was dating me. Ideally, these meetings not only make prospective partners feel welcomed but also teach them something about the House cultivar, helping them understand it is not generic “pop culture.”
- Independent of a House’s opinion of a prospective partner, outsiders are welcomed and accepted by the wider family. This was a practice my (Malcolm’s) mom intentionally adopted—and it really paid off. Her welcoming approach to my various girlfriends ensured I was never afraid to introduce a date to the family. By the time my brother and I were married, our spouses’ positive interactions with the family made it easier for them to lean in.
- Once someone marries into a House, they engage in at least one “family day” each month in which they either help with childcare for family members or invite them over for some form of wholesome fun. These exchanges have sub-units within Houses accumulate and exchange small favors and reinforce the value offered by being part of a cohesive culture and community.
- Houses leverage social pressure to encourage members to lean into family traditions through practices like photo-sharing and gift exchanges (which make it obvious when a member of the family is being lax about their traditions).
Finally, even when outsiders break from House traditions (perhaps because their House cultivar simply isn’t durable culture material), the Index system grants their children an opportunity to stay within the broader cultural network and create a stronger House should they imagine a better way of doing things.