I married outside of my Faith--actually I became a Baha'i in 1965, and married in 1966, and it was outside of my Faith, my race, and my nationality. Baha'is, because of great emphasis on family unity, are required to obtain their parents consent to marry, as long as they have parents living, and my parents consented. My mother had already become a Baha'i at the age of 54. Oddly enough, my (now-ex-) husband, who is a Kenyan, was raised in the same Christian denomination as my maternal grandparents--Presbyterian--but due to his negative experiences with missionaries when he was growing up in Kenya, he stubbornly vowed he would never join anything and is still holding to it. Nevertheless, he was quite supportive of our four children, all of whom are Baha'is, and cheerfully paid for their many trips associated with Baha'i service. I would have happily gone to a Christian church with him, had he been willing to go, as Baha'is are instructed to "Consort with the followers of all religions with joy and fragrance." (Baha'is, of course, do not believe our religion is the only true one.) We were married for nearly 30 years, and I don't believe our eventual divorce had much to do with either race or religion, just personal differences. To be honest, I did feel unhappy that we were not able to share any spiritual practice and I always had to go to things alone, but the actual fact was that he was extremely involved with business and worked 7 days a week, and we didn't share much of anything by the time I gave up on it. Not long ago my daughter asked him why he never became a Baha'i, and he said he guessed he was lazy. I think that was an honest answer; once he got home from work, he always preferred to sit in front of the TV until after the 11 o'clock news! He liked the Baha'i teachings but didn't want to have to bother to investigate deeply or think about it too much. But I should tell you the story of my daughter; when she was 18 or so, she started dating an African American young man who was not much interested in any religion at the time, but after a lot of discussions on the subject with her, he became involved with the Nation of Islam (Black Moslems), and started standing around on streetcorners handing out literature and telling people that whites are devils. She broke up with him over that; she said she was not going to have her children taught that their grandmother (me) was a devil! Then she began dating a young man from a Christian background who also was not interested in religion, but after a couple of years he became involved with an evangelical Christian denomination and started calling and leaving messages on her answering machine saying she had the responsibility to save her whole family from going to hell. So she broke up with him. She is now married to a Baha'i, but that is also a test for her, as she loves the Baha'i Faith very much, and he has decided he isn't really very interested and won't go to anything with her. This has been quite a test for her, and they are still working it out. My thoughts would be that if your religion is very important to you, AND unless you can really, sincerely say that you can accept the other person's religion (or lack of) without feeling you have to change him/her, it is better to marry someone of your own Faith. If you can accept that there are many paths to God, and that the other person's may be right for him/her, then it may not be a problem, but I would suggest you discuss the matter at some length and come to an agreement before marriage. The problem is, it's like the question of having children, many people when dating don't say what they really mean, thinking the other person will "come around," and then it becomes an issue later. If your desire for your marriage is that you will be able to pray, study, and serve together, then it's better to have that understood from the beginning, or it won't happen!
