I have witnessed many marriages which are bi culture and they are very strong . Mashallah.
Then there are some which did not survive , not because of culture clash , but because of personality clash. When you are in love you go into denial about things which you would not tolerate and would consider offensive or annoying. It is called "mohabbat ka nasha" in Urdu. English translation would be "romance makes you blind" .
Once you are married then you start to realize oh wow this guy/gal has this thing which is so annoying .
First hand experience, vast majority of marital problems are not culture-specific. They're just human-specific. Can't hide from them in any race/culture.
Loads of people around me have mixed race/culture marriages.
Works out pretty great as neither person's background is favoured over the other because their main strength is that they agree that when in conflict, Islamic concepts should override. And can't argue with that, eh! :) Alhamdulillah.
Quite common amongst young 'practicing' Muslims in London these days.
Yeah, mixed marriages are defo quite common in London nowadays, about half the weddings we go to now are desi with non-desi.. There are some amazing mixes..
There is no restriction on marrying into a different culture, and not at all I find other cultures very interesting .
Culture has no correlation with Islam, and it is crucial that culture is completely discarded from the deen.
I think its an excellent thing that people from different cultures should amalgamate together. The children being of dual heritage would also have a diverse and rich outlook on life. I wouldn't restrict my children to stay within 'pakistanis', they can marry whoever they like as long as they are a good human and a good muslim.
When two individuals fall in love they put all the differences in the back seat. They think that everything is (will be fine). But over time, culture and religion start playing role in their lives, especially when they have children. Father wants to raise them along his lines while mother wants to raise then along her lines. This is the fact that the couple had not considered at all when they had first met or decided to get married.
When you come from two different cultures, most likely you have two different mother tongues. And it becomes so hard to do your intimate talk in a second language. You can never feel satrisfied to curse or compliment in a second language than your mother tongue.
Also when it comes to your heritage, festivals, rituals etc, you wish if your partner could enjoy them but in reality it doesn't happen. The way a punjabi can treat his guests, a non-punjabi may not do so the same way.
So all these things start playing a role in a couple's live once they are married and the intensity of love is decreasing.
My gut feeling is that one should marry a person from his/her own religion and culture for a better success. Again there is no gurantee whether a marriage will succeed even when they have married in their own culture and religion. For a successful marriage, there has to compatibilty, tolerance and understanding.