An ecumenical marriage

Once, at a party, a friend's father referred to my husband and me as ecumenical. We didn't know what the word meant, so we smiled, nodded and hoped that we were being complimented. We stayed for a few drinks before leaving. Within 30 seconds of arriving home, both of us were peering into the OED.

Ecumenical /adj./ 1. Of or representing the whole Christian world. 2. Seeking worldwide Christian unity.

It was a wholly unsatisfying definition. We consulted a thesaurus instead and found that we are cosmopolitan, cosmic, open-minded, planetary, tolerant and universal.

It's not unusual for us to get these types of comments. "You two make such a good-looking/wonderful/darling couple," we are told. Another variation: "You two are going to have such beautiful children. Mixed children are the prettiest." The "mixed" is always spoken in a hushed tone. Never mind that we may not want children. Never mind that our children may, in fact, turn out to be trolls.

People say these things because I am Jamaican and my husband is Korean. Said differently, I am black and my husband is Asian. Or, as my husband likes to say: Together, we are two kinds of non-white.

My husband, David, says he knew he wanted to marry me within the first two weeks of our relationship. It happened the first time he heard me singing in the shower. This sweet thought was quickly followed by a prophetic one: "Oh shit."

Even before we decided to get married, there was the issue of the staring and the commenting. Not the "what a wonderful couple" kind of comment that I discussed before. Certainly, we've gotten used to being told that we are a beautiful couple and how genetically lucky our progeny will be. Though we find these comments slightly offensive in that they exoticize us, they seem harmless and, to be fair, we are sometimes flattered by the attention. The comments we will never get used to are the overtly rude ones: Black men yelling at David about how he is stealing their women. The disgusted clucking from some black women accompanied by a look that says, Look at her. She thinks she better than everybody. We'll never get used to the incessant stares of grandmotherly Korean women. They glance, then glance away, only to glance back again. They shake their heads with empathetic shame for David's family.

Still, none of this, the racism or the absurdity, compares to the pain my husband has endured and continues to endure in order to be with me. David hasn't spoken with his parents for a little over a year now. They did not attend our wedding. They didn't even send back the RSVP. My husband is sad and angry for obvious reasons. Paradoxically, he is also ashamed -- on two fronts. The first is more manageable, more intellectual: David is a well-educated man and he is embarrassed by his parents' ignorance. Less benign is the shame borne out of his sense of himself. He is both a part and a product of his parents' culture. If his parents can abandon their own son out of deference to their culture, then what does this mean for him? Is he a son who has forsaken his duty to his parents, to his culture? Is this culture something he wants to call his own, to pass on to his children? If he rejects it, is he then in limbo? Does he become a man with no history?

For my part, I alternate between anger and resentment. I am angry at the sadness David's parents have caused him. And I am angry at their cultural ignorance. What did they think would happen when they came to America and decided to have children?

Alongside the anger is resentment. I resent his mother for saying that if he married me she would have to be in a family with those people. By those people she meant my very accepting, very hard-working Jamaican parents. The same parents who, though they would rather I married a black man, welcomed David into their house simply because I was in love with him. I resent the fact that I have never met my husband's father. I resent the audacity of their prejudice. They are immigrants as we are. They've had to fight hard as we have. Our families have more commonalities than differences. How dare they presume to think that they are better than us? Are we not, all of us, strangers in a strange land?

Sometimes I wish I never had to think about David's parents again. But then I think about our not-yet-conceived progeny that folks seem to think will be so attractive. It would be a shame for them to grow up without their grandparents. There is a Korean heritage that I simply cannot teach them.

So, why did we get married? Because marriage is about two people. It isn't about strangers' comments, or family approval or disapproval, and it's certainly not about interracial discourse. We got married because ritual is important. We wanted to stand in front of our family and friends and declare our promise out loud. In the end, the only people who attended were those who were happy for us. Was it painful that David's family wasn't there? Yes. But so it goes.

Why did we get married? Because we were in love. We still are.

-- Nicola Thompson

- - - - - - - - - - - -

We want to make you a part of this series. What is the state of your union? Did you find the one and never look back, or has finding lasting love been a marathon of trial and error? Did you have a fairy-tale wedding only to watch things crumble once the reception was over, or have you glided along in marital bliss since Day One? We want to hear your stories of joy, romance, heartbreak and pain. After all, partnership, as we all know, is a complex concoction of all of those things. (Please remember: Any writing submitted becomes the property of Salon if we publish it. We reserve the right to edit submissions, and cannot reply to every writer. Interested contributors should send their stories to marriage@salon.com.)

Recent Stories