Sikh girls marrying out of religion

[Guest gator_sikh]

I have been noticing a recent trend among sikh girls to marry outside religion. This is making me very sad as I do not understand what are sikh men missing that girls are not even looking at them. This is really disheartening as even my cousin sisters decided to marry hindus. I don't mean hindus are bad, but if you were born into a religion gifted to you by your parents and god why not follow it and have a life partner from the same religion. Whenever I see a sikh girl marrying outside I feel like slapping myself and sometime cry as why has our religion become so weak.

What could be done to solve this? This will definitely become a bigger issue in the community going forward. Educating the girls doesn't seem to be working in our gurdwara where we have talked to bhaijis to have some bibis talk to young girls. But this all doesn't seem to be working.

[Guest Guest]

I agree with u paaji ive heard of a few cases as sometimes caste has an issue n then the girl decides to get with a gora or like college uni the party lifestyle as for the hindu thing i dnt quite understand that but there r many guys gettin with people out of ther religion too education is key but its a tough

[lsingh]

We need to give our children the whole picture in detail and discuss with them, the Sikh religion and its values , its history, why it is good to marry somebody with similar values. However many parents have let the kids down on this and are into dance, drink, watch Bollywood lifestyle. Many of the boys and girls don't know what it is to be a Sikh.

[Guest Hnam singh]

Who cares live your own life. Lot of this is happening because Guru Jee chose person A to be married to b person B. Everything Guru Jee wrote has a life line even marriage. There is a beginning and an ending to everything. These things happen either the parents are too extreme into Sikhi or the parents are too drunk. These are the only problems that should be fixed if this is to stop but than we can not change what Guru Jee wrote for us.

[Not2Cool2Argue]

A short movie that addresses this issue:

or can be found at: http://www.sikhnet.com/filmfestival/2012/blind-journey/

[Sherdil]

I don't think it's fair to single out the girls. Guys marry outside of Sikhi too. That being said, two wrongs don't make a right.

Sikhs aren't the only ones who marry outside of their faith. Every faith has members who end up with people from outside. I think the "trend" that the OP has mentioned is relatively new, and that's why there are so many threads on here about the same subject. However, if you look at other faiths you will see that interfaith marriages are a lot more common and it has been going on for a lot longer.

Sikhi has not become weak. It is going through growing pains, just like every major religion that has come before it. The Jews came up with an interesting solution. If the mother is a Jew, then the children are automatically Jewish.

[Guru_Da_Chella]

This and the problems on this thread with attitudes from girls towards turbans are connected issues:

[VanHelsingh]

I don't think it's fair to single out the girls. Guys marry outside of Sikhi too. That being said, two wrongs don't make a right.

Sikhs aren't the only ones who marry outside of their faith. Every faith has members who end up with people from outside. I think the "trend" that the OP has mentioned is relatively new, and that's why there are so many threads on here about the same subject. However, if you look at other faiths you will see that interfaith marriages are a lot more common and it has been going on for a lot longer.

Sikhi has not become weak. It is going through growing pains, just like every major religion that has come before it. The Jews came up with an interesting solution. If the mother is a Jew, then the children are automatically Jewish.

Makes sense. The issue we Sikhs have is that whilst the majority of Jews have a semblance of "kich" or a natural affinity for their Jewish heritage and roots (possibly due to their troubled history), our lot can't wait to give it all up for their chosen life partner. The first thing to go out of the window is the Sikhi! To expect a Sikh-born female to bring up her kids as Sikhs when she's married a non-Sikh may be a desired outcome in situations as these, but the reality of the situation on the ground is that not many give a jot about Sikhi in the first place. They see it as the first thing to be abandoned from their "old" life when starting anew with their non-Sikh partner.

Sadly this also seems to apply to the Sikh fellas as well, so I reckon it's less of a "sexes" issue but more of a personality defect in individuals born into Sikh families who later relinquish ties with their faith. It's sad considering how our glorious history is full of accounts of men AND women giving their heads before giving up their Sikhi.

[Guest gator_sikh]

Makes sense. The issue we Sikhs have is that whilst the majority of Jews have a semblance of "kich" or a natural affinity for their Jewish heritage and roots (possibly due to their troubled history), our lot can't wait to give it all up for their chosen life partner. The first thing to go out of the window is the Sikhi! To expect a Sikh-born female to bring up her kids as Sikhs when she's married a non-Sikh may be a desired outcome in situations as these, but the reality of the situation on the ground is that not many give a jot about Sikhi in the first place. They see it as the first thing to be abandoned from their "old" life when starting anew with their non-Sikh partner.

Sadly this also seems to apply to the Sikh fellas as well, so I reckon it's less of a "sexes" issue but more of a personality defect in individuals born into Sikh families who later relinquish ties with their faith. It's sad considering how our glorious history is full of accounts of men AND women giving their heads before giving up their Sikhi.

Totall agree with the above. Based on the above conversation I believe there are two major reasons for this to be so much prevalant now days.

1) The burden of the religion is not equally shared among the sexes. I ask why only men are mandated to wear a turban, why not women? ( I have a lot of respect for those women who wear a turban these days without caring about their looks...hats off to these bibis). Though I agree Sikhs have their own personality which no one can match but in the western world I believe the look puts them at a disadvantage when comapred to sikh girls doing all their worldly fashion display.

I have seen very less instances of puran sikh males marrying outside the religion (exceptions exist). On similar lines if the females become more active (by being more involved and wearing turbans and being less concerned about superficial beauty) there will definitely be a decline of outside sikhi marraiges of girls.

2) Secondly, parents need to be told about educating both girls and boys the right way ... Emphasis should be on remaining in gurmat. Unfortunately, parents today teach their kids how to dress up for halloween parties and how to look smarter than the rest. Having a white or outside race gf or bf has become a kind of status display. Kids are not being rebuked for fiddling with their hair.

Having said that, the onus rests on the community to come together and live the life which our gurus preached and died for.

wjkwjkf

[Guest gupt_sister]

Sorry to add this comment, but from my experience, its not about girls running to marry out of religion...the fact is that our sikh boys reject many girls for looks and figure which drives girl out of our religion....

I know of two sisters who met many sikh guys through parents, but rejection after rejection led them to look elsewhere!

I dont agree that girls should turn to non sikhs but we cant just blame sikhs...someone at the start said 'what are sikh guys missing that our sikh girls cant see...my question is back to the sikh guys who arrogantly reject girls based on a photo, or wanting to date for 6 months before deciding if they will even consider marriage with them!

Its our haumai, arrogance and self centredness thats letting us lose generations of sikhs...we let one girl go...we have lost an entire generation of sikhs to come!

girls and guys both need to wake up on this matter!