This paper is mostly going to focus on the two main couples that we follow throughout the entire book. The first couple is Archie and Clara, the second couple is Samad and Alsana. Throughout the book we get flash backs at the lives of the characters throughout the book. There are four concepts I cover in this paper, how communication, race, ethnicity, and differences between couples affects mostly their marriages.
One of the first concepts I found from the textbook that was a big part of the plot line was the interracial and interethnic marriage. Interethnic marriage is where spouses have different cultural backgrounds. (Seccombe 2012). Now this can be difficult because if you have come from different cultures you can have different ways of…show more content… This applies to both Archie, Samad, and their wives. Heterogamous marriage is a married couple that are not the same when it comes to things like age, education, religion, or social class. (Seccombe 2012). This is hard if you are married and or in this kind of a relationship because how do you decide what religion you are going to follow your partners or yours? And if you are younger than your spouse that is less shared life experience. Now it is immediately reveled that Clara is much younger than Archie it says that in the book, right after Archie describes how Clara looks, the author mentions that Clara is 19 and Archie is 47. However, for Samad and Alsana, it is mentioned that she is younger than Samad but it does not tell the age difference. It is only in chapter 5, where Archie and Samad are in the war and Samad says that his wife has not even been born yet. Both of these examples show the difference in age between the two married couples. In the beginning of the book when talking about Samad and Alsana you believe them to be a normal Muslim couple, however we learn later that Alsana is more of an atheist than a Muslim, by the way Samad thinks that she is lacking the faith and by her saying in a heated argument that she doesn’t call herself a Muslim. This is an example of the difference in…show more content… Specifically “nonregulated couples: Couples have many negative communication exchanges.” Now Gottman says that nonregulated couples use five techniques, contempt or thinking you are better than your spouse, defensiveness which is basically attack before you get attacked, criticism pointing out the negatives of your spouse behavior, stonewalling where you show that you aren’t listening by not saying anything, and finally belligerence this is basically having an aggressive behavior. (Seccombe 2012). This is a great term that perfectly describes Samad and Alsana. It is clear that they do not like each other that much because they are always fighting. Now there are great examples of the dislike they share for each other throughout the book, I have chosen the two that I find the most dysfunctional. The perfect example is when Samad uses defensiveness, when he thinks that his wife has found out that he has had an affair. Samad describes walking into the kitchen seeing his wife crying, and claims to do what every guy who has been unfaithful would do and attack her first. He starts by insulting her, then she spits in his face and insults him, and by the end of the fight, they are using belligerence by beating up each other in the back yard. The second is an example of stonewalling, when Alsana finds out that Samad sent their son Magid to India without telling her, she refuses to speak directly to Samad for eight