The rate of interfaith marriage in the United States has risen so
radically since the sixties that it is difficult to recall how
taboo the practice once was. How is this development understood and
regarded by Americans generally, and what does it tell us about the
nation's religious life? Drawing on ethnographic and historical
sources, Samira K. Mehta provides a fascinating analysis of wives,
husbands, children, and their extended families in interfaith
homes; religious leaders; and the social and cultural milieu
surrounding mixed marriages among Jews, Catholics, and
Protestants.
Mehta's eye-opening look at the portrayal of interfaith families
across American culture since the mid-twentieth century ranges from
popular TV shows, holiday cards, and humorous guides to
"Chrismukkah" to children's books, young adult fiction,
and religious and secular advice manuals. Mehta argues that
the emergence of multiculturalism helped generate new terms by
which interfaith families felt empowered to shape their lived
religious practices in ways and degrees previously unknown. They
began to intertwine their religious identities without compromising
their social standing. This rich portrait of families living
diverse religions together at home advances the understanding of
how religion functions in American society today.