Mixed up in love and safe in marriage

Mixed up in love and safe in marriage

My Cousin dropped by on his way to a friend's wedding. During the course of our conversation he told me that this friend is a Muslim and had been in love with a Hindu girl. After 6 years of courtship they finally decided to part ways and marry persons acceptable to their parents.

The curious aspect is that neither the muslim boy nor the Hindu girl are active practitioners of their religion and even the parents are not very strict in their adherence to customs and rituals. If they could have been good friends without the interference of religion why should it be a problem for a happy marriage? Do people really change after marriage and suddenly become practitioners of their rituals and customs? When people talk about problems that the children of such parents could have, I don't undertand what they mean. Don't parents of all religions bring up their children with the same kind of love and care!

Ultimately isn't marriage about the understanding between two individuals, two human beings more than what name they give to their god or what their prayer rites are like? if their love was really strong, would they not have found it worthwhile to stand up for it and convince their parents? or do the youngsters themselves have different requirements from the person they want to be in "love" with and the person they want to marry? Were the parents being just used as an excuse to get out of an error in judgement and then settle into a more comfortable long term arrangement?

I am not trying to be subversive but I am just trying to understand a societal trend. I cannot dismiss these are cases of immature physical attraction which gradually wore off. These are intelligent students from institutions like the IIT who have the ability to think issues through and the courage to take on the system. So when these young people take shelter behind not wanting to wipe the smile from their parents' faces, I find it tough to accept it at face value; because if such people cannot stand up and fight for what they feel is right, it is a very grim scene. And if they think that falling in love with a person from another religious background is "not right", then it is an even grimmer scene.