download the pdf - St.Francis Magazine

St Francis Magazine Vol 8, No 4 | August 2012
It is tempting to provide an additional column showing the outcomes
to these marriages: no change, divorce or the spouse’s conversion.
However, such a bald summary would be misleading. It would
mask the individual factors, marriage stresses, compromises and
breakthroughs which continued to evolve in these marriages from
their inception up till the interviews and indeed since then. Moreover,
my sample is not necessarily representative, so any generalizing
conclusions should be made with caution and explanation.
For now, in a preliminary and provisional way, for each identity
level I will present just one sample issue, set against a little relevant
theory from the social sciences, and illustrated with a few selective
quotes from my data.
6 Marriage’s Impact at each Level of Identity
6.1 Impact of marriage on converts’ core identit
My chosen identity issue here is of a spouse’s contribution to “reality
maintenance”.
6.1.1 Relevant social science theory
We saw earlier that core identity describes a person’s individual
sense of self, and that this is moulded by one’s interaction with “significant
others” in infancy and childhood.
By the stage of reaching adulthood a psychologically healthy individual
will have achieved a fairly stable core worldview. However
this still needs constant topping up (so to speak) through the “reality
maintenance” provided by an environment which endorses those
worldview assumptions. “Religiously legitimated” societies do this
by reinforcing a monolithic worldview, as Peter Berger writes. 88 It is
to a great degree in this manner that traditional Islamic societies
maintain their members in Islam.
88 Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion.
(New York: Doubleday, 1967).
St Francis Magazine is a publication of Interserve and Arab Vision 549