Happy Inter-racial Marriage?

Jay Spark’s “The White Boy Speaks on Dating Asian Women” has sparked much controversy, including some flaming responses, in asiancemagazine.com, to which I want to add my own comments, based on loving and marrying Tina Su, who was born in China in 1944 and grew up in the US since 1946.

First, while dating can be fun, it is also interviewing for marriage partners. A happy marriage is usually better than being single, which is usually better than an unhappy marriage. If the interviewees are unsuitable, move on, perhaps changing your fishing location. “You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em….”

Second, while sex is fun, it is Mother Nature’s way of getting us to have babies, and not all of us want babies when they arrive. The male half of the population is generally less enthusiastic about them than the female half. If you can’t be chaste, be careful. If you think he is going to do half the child-care work, think again.

Third, while money can buy many things, it isn’t The Answer. Worrying about one’s bills is a drag. Once you get past that, money seems less important. Yes, money is convenient and brings a kind of power, but power tends to corrupt. You can even have more than is good for you. You can easily be too interested in it.

Fourth, while good looks are a plus, we all get less good looking as we age. Don’t count on beauty to last. Dating and mating are somewhat like trading; ask yourself what you are giving up for a bit more in the way of good looks.

Fifth, status seems nice, but it is empty. You are not who others think you are, but who you know yourself to be. A big gap between reputation and reality is a chasm into which our success and self-esteem will plummet.

Many of the sad tales from the readers of Spark’s articles stem from bad marriages between whites who grew up here and non-whites who grew up there, where there is very different from here. Values are instilled by families and the ambient culture. Shared values are needed for setting goals and for the harmonious resolution of disagreements. Some cultures value education, others not so much. Some are appalled at out-of-wedlock births, others not so much. Some cultures prize family connections more than others. Some invest heavily in a few children; others less heavily in each of many children. Make up your own list…the dimensions are many.

The reader “Broken-hearted Brit in China” ended up married to a hard-hearted Chinese wife with whom he had nothing in common. Another man “rescued” a woman from the Dominican Republic, who sees him as a human ATM, a source of money for herself and her son from an earlier relationship. “Norman in China” avoided even talk of marriage with the Chinese women he met there. He had read and heard too many tales of such unsuccessful inter-racial and inter-cultural pairings.

Not all of the fault for the failure of these marriages is due to culture and race. Personal characteristics count, too. U.S. Boy Scouts are supposed to be “trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.” I think these are goals for Girl Scouts, too, or they should be. If you use this as a checklist against which to measure your future spouse, you will not go too far wrong. We might add: have parents who favor the match and who would make good in-laws, hold similar political/ethical views, have interests and inter-personal styles that are not at odds with ours…. Clearly, the scouting checklist needs expansion, but it is a good start.

One of the commenters on Spark’s article noted a Columbia University study that showed that Asian-American women tended to date Asian or Caucasian men, over blacks or Hispanics. Some see this as irrational discrimination, but I see it as largely due to similarity of cultures, of world-views. The Chinese are sometimes referred to as the “Jews of the Orient,” alluding to both groups’ emphases on education, group cohesion, and entrepreneurship wherever they find themselves. Anglo-Saxons are not so different in these regards, either.

My wife and I grew up in New York State, during the same era, in families that were lower-middle-class in income and upper-middle-class in culture, prizing education and professional achievement. We agree politically. We fell in love early and married decades later, finally old enough to make our own choices without needing the approval of others. Our first marriages, neither of them inter-racial, failed, and this one has succeeded for twenty-eight years. We have been committed to the success of our marriage and have overcome some major challenges. Love and character have prevailed, assisted by a substantial similarity in backgrounds, despite being of different races.

You date perhaps to mate, so be wisely selective. Racial similarity is likely to prove less important than cultural compatibility. Character trumps both of these…and true love conquers almost all.

*****

Douglas Winslow Cooper, Ph.D., is a freelance writer, a retired scientist, the author of Ting and I: A Memoir of Love, Courage, and Devotion, published in September 2011 and available through amazon.com, outskirtspress.com, and bn.com.